Memo To Politicians: Let Jesus Rest In Peace

I am tired of people telling me what God is.

I am also amazed that people have the audacity to believe they understand and know what God is.

God is a source of speculation only. Religous speculation has no place in politics. Not when people's lives and livelihood are at stake.

Thomas the Hallucinator Baum,

Well at least you follow in the footsteps of other hallucinating Christians to include the simple preacher man.

As a reminder:

Jesus was an illiterate Jewish peasant/ carpenter/simple preacher man who suffered from hallucinations (if you believe his "biographers") and who has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth to a mamzer from Nazareth (Professor Bruce Chilton, in his book Rabbi Jesus). Analyses of Jesus’ 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.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html

For added "pizzazz", Catholic/Christian theologians divided god the singularity into three persons and invented atonement as an added guilt trip for the "pew people" to go along with this trinity of overseers. By doing so, they made god the padre into god the "filicider".

Luther, Calvin, Joe 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).

TO HARRIS G THOMPSON:

You wrote, "Modernity makes religion look like the supernatural nonsense that it is. The future will giggle at our foolishness, the way we giggle at the witch hunts of the past and see what utter fools we once were."

I don't really think that you meant this the way it seems; I, for one, do not "giggle at the witch hunts of the past", these were real flesh and blood people, that in some cases were tortured and killed in the name of God by people that seemed to know nothing about God except for His Name.

As far as the 'Modernity makes religion look like...", we sure can get caught up in all the bells and whistles, can we not?

We have come up with some very fancy gadgets in modern times but has man, himself, changed very much?

With the explosion in the telecommunications industry we can communicate with people pretty much anywhere in the world, but do we really communicate or do we just exchange more and more information?

Talk about information overload.

We can call to the other side of the globe but do we talk to the people around us?

You also wrote, "Change, as somebody once said, is the only constant.", something to think about, has human nature changed very much lately?

As in, since we have been human.

Granted people's toys have changed a lot and some people are overwhelmed by gadgets.

Sometimes, we are so mesmerized by the whistles and bells of "modernity" that we can become blind to the rest of humanity.

By the way, God is real and He is a Being of Pure Love and He is a Trinity.

Also, God is not a He, a She or an It but I do use the male form of the pronoun because a pronoun comes in handy sometimes but I would like to mention that God-Incarnate was a Male, a Jewish Man.

Plenty of people speak about God and some even get His Name right but some of them don't seem to know anything about God except for His Name.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

As a latecomer to the debate on religion's continued existence, I believe Nic Brady has it right. Religion will go eventually. Stop religious indoctrination and religion will go the way of all superstition.
Modernity makes religion look like the supernatural nonsense that it is. The future will giggle at our foolishness, the way we giggle at the witch hunts of the past and see what utter fools we once were.

Change, as somebody once said, is the only constant.

Again, I apologize for off topic stuff, but what I wrote appears contradictory:

"The physics behind cold fusion are the laws of thermodynamics, which are universally accepted."

"There is no widely accepted theoretical explanation for it . . ."

To clarify: thermodynamics are the basis for calorimetry, which is the principal method used to confirm that cold fusion is occurring. Other methods include x-ray film, gamma ray and neutron detectors, mass spectrometers, and so on. These are based on conventional physics and chemistry. They confirm THAT a nuclear effect occurs, but there is still no theory to explain WHY it occurs.

Skeptics claim that these conventional instruments are used incorrectly, or that the signal to noise ratio is low, but they are wrong.

A few skeptics, such as Prof. Huizenga, the head of the DoE ERAB panel, claim that any experimental result which appears to conflict with established theory must be a mistake. In his book he closed by saying: "Furthermore, if the claimed excess heat exceeds that possible by other conventional processes (chemical, mechanical, etc.), one must conclude that an error has been made in measuring the excess heat." This is a highly unorthodox view.

For more details PLEASE read original source scientific papers!!!

I apologize for off-topic comments but . . . another view wrote:

"In briefly perusing Wiki on the topic of cold fusion, it's easy to understand why there was so much initial interest."

I strongly recommend . . . make that, I beg you to read original source material written by experts, in addition to Wikipedia. The Wikipedia article is biased, fragmented, confusing and inaccurate. There are well-written papers at LENR-CANR for the general public. In favor of CF: Storms, Miles and Hagelstein (HTML); anti-CF by the 1989 ERAB panel and 2004 DoE panel, S. Jones and Morrison.

"An endless supply of clean, low cost nuclear energy created at or near room temperatures. A very big deal indeed . . ."

Yup. It would solve the energy crisis overnight. I think it is closer to realization than the public realizes. It is mostly a matter of money. Experts at the NRL who developed other solid state devices such as the Aegis radar have estimated that it would cost only a few hundred million dollars to make cold fusion practical. They are working on cold fusion. See our U.S. Navy Special Collection.

"A number of more traditionally grounded scientists are seemingly of the opinion that cold fusion is a pipe dream and doesn't necessarily coincide with the known laws of physics after all . . ."

It is an experimental observation, not a theory. There is no widely accepted theoretical explanation for it, so it does not coincide or fail to coincide with anything yet. If we later discover that it does conflict with theory, that will prove the theory is wrong. It is fundamental to the scientific method that replicated experiments always trump theory.

"- experimental results have been notoriously hard to duplicate."

This is a myth. Most of the qualified researchers who have done the experiment succeeded. It is difficult, but so are most experiments, especially in solid state surface effects and catalysis. It takes several months and anywhere from $100,000 to ~$20 million, depending on the type of experiment. It works 100% of the time in major labs such as Mitsubishi. The success rate has always been far higher than things like cloning (

"This idea has such potential for creating vast wealth that you would think private investors would be jumping all over the idea . . ."

Unfortunately not. Two reasons:

1. It is still at the fundamental physics level. A "force of nature" cannot be patented. It is like discovering fission.

2. There is a great deal of misinformation circulating about it, and even top decision makers often read only the mass media distortions, and not the original source peer-reviewed journal papers. So they have no idea what is claimed, or what results have been achieved. This is like trying to judge evolution after reading only Creationist literature. The mass media, Sci. Am. and Wikipedia descriptions are extreme caricatures written by people who know nothing about the subject -- people who BRAG that they have not read any papers! If the research really was as bad as they describe it, no sane scientist would believe a word of it.

Thanks for your response Mr. Rothwell. In briefly perusing Wiki on the topic of cold fusion, it's easy to understand why there was so much initial interest.

An endless supply of clean, low cost nuclear energy created at or near room temperatures. A very big deal indeed, not to mention the potential for creating more than a few billionaires overnight!

This is quite in contrast with the fabled hot fusion process, which remains out of reach for all practical purposes based on the lack of technology and vast energy requirements involved.

A number of more traditionally grounded scientists are seemingly of the opinion that cold fusion is a pipe dream and doesn't necessarily coincide with the known laws of physics after all - experimental results have been notoriously hard to duplicate. Government funding has been hit and miss......

This idea has such potential for creating vast wealth that you would think private investors would be jumping all over the idea - maybe even some petroleum industry money (they don't care about oil, they care about a perpetual cash cow).

Interesting idea anyway - maybe we'll hear more about it down the road when we start filling up over at the Hydrogen Shell or Citgo depot.

another view wrote:

"In googling Jed Rothwell we find that not all is necessarily well in his world. He is not universally admired . . ."

Of course! Cold fusion is controversial. No one involved in it is universally admired. Many people oppose it, and think that the researchers are wrong, and that I am wrong.

". . . and apparently has no scientific credentials....

None whatever! I never claimed to have scientific credentials (except undergraduate mid-level physics and biology). On the other hand I have written papers reviewing Miles and McKubre, and a book with some technical content. You can read them and judge for yourself whether I know what I am talking about.

Actually, the only way you can judge anyone's work is by reading it, because even credentialed professionals sometimes make serious mistakes. Someone who claims that "Prof. X is right" or "experiment Y is wrong" must provide a detailed analysis to support his views. Once you have the analysis, the author's credentials become irrelevant; the analysis must stand or fall on its own merits.

" . . . his literary efforts regarding cold fusion are a joint effort . . ."

Yes. I always list co-authors and editors.

". . . and do not past muster with certain adversarial science-based factions that find fault with the physics behind cold fusion."

All sides are science based. Our author database lists roughly 2000 cold fusion researchers and they are all professional scientists in mainstream institutions. I would not list them otherwise. Many of them are distinguished scientists such as Nobel laureates, the head of the Indian Gov't Atomic Energy Commission and so on.

The physics behind cold fusion are the laws of thermodynamics, which are universally accepted. No one finds fault with them. Some critics claim that there are experimental errors, but the errors they cite are not in evidence. For example, they claim that helium-4 has only been detected at background levels, whereas the data shows that it has often been detected at much higher levels. See:

http://lenr-canr.org/News.htm#SciAmSlam

"It's always good to get the whole story.

Yes. That's why I have uploaded 600 papers on cold fusion, including nearly all of the peer-reviewed papers that attempt to disprove cold fusion. (There are only about a dozen.) My library is the largest and most complete anti-cold fusion collection on the Internet. The University of Utah has a larger collection of both pro and con documents which is off-line. I am trying to bring more of it on line

In googling Jed Rothwell we find that not all is necessarily well in his world. He is not universally admired and apparently has no scientific credentials....his literary efforts regarding cold fusion are a joint effort and do not past muster with certain adversarial science-based factions that find fault with the physics behind cold fusion. It's always good to get the whole story.

My brother knew a guy who lived with a girl whose aunt had a nephew who dated this woman whose friend was related to the Frenchman whose neighbor had lived next door to the grandfather of a butler who saw Napoleon having sex with Josephine. Or so he said. But now he's dead.

Dear Anon:

"1. There are no mysteries in stats. Lots of mistakes, but the only mysteries are instrument errors, and they don't mean much."

How little you know, and how sure you are of it. Quantum theory has it that there are limits of knowledge that are not "instrument errors" as you so quaintly put it.

Got it? Does that bother you? You want more? Study physics and make your own theories if you can; while you swim through the Luminiferous Aether.

Dear DZ,

I am sorry to hear of your loss. I remember your posts around last Christmas. Your love for her and hers for you is what mattered then, and it is what matters now. Peace be with you and yours at this time; and always.

Nic Brady wrote:

"People have washing machines, and nice glossy bathrooms, all over the UK, and central heating is everywhere too."

Is it everywhere now? That's changed since I was there in 1970.

"I said me father remembers the 'first', (ok 'early' might be a better word) radios, cameras etc. Why so picky?"

Not picky . . . just time traveling and fact checking with the Sears catalogue. It is a shame I cannot place an order for a 100-piece Carlsbad China Set for $13.95. That would be time traveling with panache!

No doubt your father did remember the first radio he encountered. People were astounded by radio, and rightly so. I'll never forget the first time I saw a computer, or the first time I programmed one. People who have grown up with computers will never experience the same sense of wonder.

"Google Toothbrush."

Now THERE is an example of a sentence that wouldn't have meant anything in 1990, and it describes an action ("googling") that would have seemed like black magic a century ago.

Now you have me wondering how people brushed their teeth in premodern Japan . . .

I cannot resist commenting on speed123's remark. He says it is about "secular humanism" but I believe he has in mind physics and other science, because there are no "stats" or "figures" in secular humanism:

"What is mysterious about your cold stats, facts and figures which you think you can explain our entire existence with?"

Answers:

1. There are no mysteries in stats. Lots of mistakes, but the only mysteries are instrument errors, and they don't mean much.

2. This stuff explains how we got here, of course -- with evolution. But if you are looking for a deeper explanation, a purpose, The Meaning of Life, a sense of wonder or what have you, tough luck. As a source of inspiration or purpose, a physics textbook is about as useful as an-line Guide to Microsoft Word. People sometimes gab about the beauty of understanding the cosmos, but to me, knowing how the stars work doesn't seem any more uplifting than understanding how to clean a 1968 Volkswagen carburetor.

3. Religion doesn't work either. It doesn't inspire me -- it creeps me out. It is not inspiring or uplifting; it is mostly about groveling and feeling guilty about having sex, of all things. It is even less useful than the Guide to Microsoft Word, because on rare occasions the on-line help actually addresses your question, and the invocations it recommends have been known to work, whereas God never answers, as Mother Theresa discovered but would not admit.

4. The Meaning of Life, if you must know, was explained clearly by Macbeth just before he was skewered by Macduff:

Life is a tale told by an idiot
Full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

Got it? Does that bother you? You want more? Though luck, too bad, and Grow Up. Study existentialism and make your own purposes if you must.

Jed.
This is actually all irrelevant, but my folks were working class people and we lived in a working class neighborhood in a working class world. I didn't want to waste time and words describing every detail,, my point is that that kind of life is now gone. People have washing machines, and nice glossy bathrooms, all over the UK, and central heating is everywhere too.

I did visit my aunt during ww2 in another town and she had an indoor bathroom and hot running water,and maybe even a toothbrush, I forget.But her house had been built in 1937. She was no doubt better off than my folks.

I said me father remembers the 'first', (ok 'early' might be a better word) radios, cameras etc. Why so picky? Dates are not relevant to my point. He was a boy around the turn of the 20th century ,and the world is a totally different place now from what it was then.
So it's fair to conclude that the world of 2108 will be quite different from the present world. And so on and so on. And things will change and among those changes will be the end of religion.

Google Toothbrush.

Byebye

nic brady wrote:

"In my own lifetime alone (I'm 74) things have changed enormously. . . ."

Yes, my parents grew in the 1920s, and said the same thing. Actually, I think the pace of progress has slowed down. My late friend Chris Tinsley made a convincing case that fundamental progress stopped around 1950. We have made incremental improvements to things like jet aircraft, transistors, lasers and IC lithography, but nothing radically new has been invented since then.

"My mother used to wash clothes with a washboard in a sink. The lavatory was outside. We had no bathroom. (and no toothbrushes). . . ."

No toothbrushes?!? That seems a little odd. In England the lavatory was often built outside but it was a flush toilet, whereas privies (outhouses) were still common in the U.S. countryside until the 1950s. As a matter of fact, my country house still has one, and so do most of the houses in the countryside in Japan, in Hiroshima and Yamaguchi prefectures, where I often go.

"My father was born in 1898 and remembered the first crystal radios,the first automobiles,the first movies,the first radios, the first cameras, the first airplanes, the first flush toilets."

I don't know about cameras, but photographs were widespread by the 1860s. Most Civil War soldiers carried them. Simple "brownie" cameras for personal use were introduced in 1900 and were wildly popular in the U.S.

"I was interested to read the other day that toothbrushes weren't mass produced until 1938."

I assume you mean mass-produced with machinery. They did have them, at least in the U.S. and France . . . maybe not the U.K.?

I happen to have an eclectic collection of women's magazines, school textbooks, encyclopedias, catalogs, dime novels and whatnot from the late 19th and early 20th century, in English and Japanese. I don't know where it all came from, but anyway, turning now to page 800 of the 1908 Sears Roebuck Catalogue, "The Great Price Maker" we find tooth paste, tooth powder "genuine . . . for cleaning, beautifying and preserving the teeth, hardening the gums, and keeping the breath sweet; warranted not injurious . . ." and a selection of tooth brushes, mainly imported from France and Japan, ranging from 8 cents to 18 cents apiece.

One of them says "directions for use are given with each brush" so perhaps they were not so common.

Regarding cameras, this catalogue has a large selection of cameras, film and plates on pages 670-682. Following that is a page of magic lantern equipment and supplies featuring the Gloria model from Nurenberg, Germany ($6.85), and then 40 pages of firearms: rifles, shotguns, pistols, ammunition, etc.

"We are in a new world which gets newer all the time. The past would be alien to us; the future too."

Yes, indeed. See Arthur C. Clarke's masterpiece "Profiles of the Future." The Millennium edition available in the U.K. has a very nice thank you note to me in the dedication. See also my e-book, "Cold Fusion and the Future" which is recommended by Arthur Clarke and many prestigious professors:

http://lenr-canr.org/BookBlurb.htm

You can read this in Portuguese or Japanese if you get tired of English. I threw some new stuff into the Japanese version, and I cut out a few of egregious insults to the Japanese nation. Although I did leave the part about flirting under the covers in a Japanese kotatsu (a heated table covered with a blanket) in chapter 4. (And if THAT teaser doesn't bring in readers, I don't know what will.)

Jed Rothwell;

I enjoyed your response, and you may well be right.

But I think what impresses me is change. Things change. In my own lifetime alone (I'm 74) things have changed enormously. My mother used to wash clothes with a washboard in a sink. The lavatory was outside. We had no bathroom. (and no toothbrushes). We had no fridge, no phone, no TV, no car. We had a radio and a gas stove in the kitchen, and coal fireplaces in the 2 rooms downstairs and in the 3 bedrooms upstairs. We did have electric lights, and had previously had gas lights. This was in a large town in southern England, and we were like everybody else.

My father was born in 1898 and remembered the first crystal radios,the first automobiles,the first movies,the first radios, the first cameras, the first airplanes, the first flush toilets.

I was interested to read the other day that toothbrushes weren't mass produced until 1938.
And they weren't in general use until after WW2, because the military issued toothbrushes to the men and after the war they returned home and kept the habit of cleaning their teeth.

We are in a new world which gets newer all the time. The past would be alien to us; the future too. Change continues at a pace all around us. Religion has nothing like the position in society that it once had. The groupthink changes. People learn more and have access to information our ancestors couldn't even dream of.

I like to think religion will join astrology, alchemy, witchcraft and palm reading as good examples of the superstitious practices from the infancy of our species.

Thanks for the conversation.

Nic Brady wrote:

". . . In terms of whether people will believe in religion and the supernatural in the future, I would say absolutely not.

I say that because the future is a very, very long time. A hundred years ago religion had much more authority and influence that it does today,and a larger percentage of people believed than believe now. In a hundred years time, it will be that much weaker again, I would think."

Well, perhaps the decline will continue asymptotically toward zero. But I doubt it. I expect a significant fraction of the population will be religious indefinitely. As my mother used to say, no trend lasts for ever or the world would be knee deep in televisions.

People will always have good reasons to be religious, such as:

Many people have a natural affinity or instinct for religion. They include even some highly rational, scientific, well-educated people such as Nobel laureates in physics. Religion is quite rare among them but not unheard of.

No matter how much technological progress we make, people will always suffer from excruciating misfortune such as lost love, disease, old age and death. At least, I hope people will always grow old and die, because an immortality pill would be a death sentence for progress. Some people will always find that religion comforts them in dire circumstances. (Others, like me, will find that in dire circumstances religion grosses them out.)

In a sense, technology and prosperity enable religion, just as they help preserve obsolescent and quaint customs. You wrote: ". . . superstition will fall by the wayside along with all the other quaint old customs." Because we have great wealth we can preserve inefficient and backward technology such as sailboats, absurdly large SUVs, 19th century mansions, and a few steam locomotives, Jamestown and the like.

"We can't remain superstitious forever. We're too smart."

Wealth and progress allow us to act stupidly and not pay the price. For example, we are wasting hundreds of millions of barrels of oil converting food into ethanol fuel. (Ethanol is an energy sink: it takes 1.2 joules of oil energy to produce 1.0 joules of ethanol. Also 20 gallons of the stuff uses up as much food as an adult eats in a year.)

Today, many people have no clue how technology works, and in the future I expect their numbers will grow. Years ago, I knew a charming, devout, not-too-smart young woman whose car stopped by the side of the road. She got out and prayed for it 10 minutes, hoping it would start miraculously. It didn't so she called a tow truck. I think her response was decidedly modern -- it was late 20th century. There were, of course, many devout and uneducated women circa 1935, but they were used to unreliable cars such as Model T Fords. They understood that cars often break and must be fixed by a mechanic, not God. They had more realistic expectations and more practical knowledge of technology because they had to. Many of them were quite ignorant of how automobile engines worked, but they knew that engines often fail to work. Nowadays, things like engines and computers work flawlessly for years and people may get the impression that they work by magic.

DZ - actually, your answer was pretty interesting - Thanks.

Arminius:

When my parents met in 1945, my father was a very militant atheist, and my mother was a young earth fundamentalist. They figured it out and made it work quite gloriously for 53 years.

It is not my business what you believe. Your posts, over the months, have clearly demonstrated kindness, a certain gentleness and a very open mind. That's all I ask for in anyone.

DZ,

As E Fav knows, I have no problem with non-believers unless they claim I am delusional or somesuch. He never has, and I am sure that neither you nor Meg would insult me like that. It happens that I was an atheist/agnostic (depending on how grumpy I was) for over three decades. I came back to religion because of a profound - to me - spiritual experience. This is the only thing which would ever have drawn me back to the church. It helps to explain why I am never in anybody's face about it.

A loss of a loved one hits like a truck, a big one, to be sure. Family and friends are essential to the healing.

Arminius

You don't have to be a theist to be convinced of the liklihood of the survival of consciousness following biological death. There is considerable research these days to bolster the myriad anecdotal claims of after-death survival.

If one is convinced of the primacy of consciousness as a human attribute that is self-existent and independent from biological brain functions, then it would seem worthwhile to investigate the matter rather than by default fall into the material realist trap of believing 'this is all there is'.

Naturally the considerable weight of science and the conviction of a good many scientists are treading these matter-laden waters exclusive of spiritual dimensions - on the other hand, science has not clearly defined what matter really is, where it comes from, or how it appears and functions the way it seems to (at it's most fundamental quantum levels).

In our short lifespan it seems inprudent to stop investigating spiritual matters based on the assumption that science tells us all we need to know in this regard - but of course this is a personal choice.

I believe that many atheists are prejudiced by their disbelief in all things religious and theological, when there are perfectly legitimate non-theological methods and modes of researching the mysteries of consciousness and thanatology.

Arminius: Thank you for your post. It is appreciated.

Meg: Again, thanks for your posts. BTW, every time I hear that Trisha Yearwood song 'How do I live without you', I lose it. In my car, in the store, watching television, anywhere. I didn't even like the song before my wife got sick.

EFav: It's is an interesting question, but I'm afraid that I do not have a very interesting answer. I've never thought about atheism as hard or easy - in my case, it simply is. Obviously, I do not seek solace in the supernatural, but the pain of loss is the pain of loss. It hits everyone who experiences it like a truck. For me, I have found comfort in my friends and my family - many of whom are religious - and, somewhat surprisingly, from the people who work for me. I do not think any aspect of life is actually harder for an atheist. It is simply one attribute of the whole me.

EFavorite and Arminius;

Morning guys...thanks for your comments; and Arminius, thanks for the compliment. It's really appreciated.

It can be tough to be an atheist when you realize that this is all she wrote.
If you're religious you can expect to live forever. Atheists, being realists, have no such illusion to lean on; that's what I mean EFave, when I say it's hard to be an atheist; especially when we lose those we love or are confronted with death ourselves.

The religious often say that there are no atheists in fox-holes; meaning that when one is terrified enough one will turn to the sky god, which is another way of saying that religious folk are religious from fear of suffering and death.. Well, DZ shows that despite his suffering he does not suddenly become a believer in the supernatural.
It would be easier for DZ to seek solace in religion and to force himself to believe that he will meet his beloved partner in 'the After Life'.

But DZ is not about to compromise himself with pipe dreams at this stage. He's got a brain as well as a heart; and will emerge from this nightmare OK, given time.

I feel uncomfortable commenting like this on another poster's great loss, and I hope it comes across with compassion and concern, rather than as an atheist trying to make point.

Meg.

"If religion isn't dead by 2100, then maybe by 2200. Or, if not, then by 2600, or the year 3000."

Ahem. Senility or death may be the only eventual options for us individual human organisms, but this doesn't necessarily hold when it comes to human concepts.

There is another possibility -- dare I whisper it ironically in here? -- evolution.

Someone pointed out above that the change in perspective that the Reformation initiated was partly responsible for the blooming of democratic / populist philosophy that followed. And that the development of democracy then led to the doctrine of separation of church and state!

Indeed. And that, in turn, precipitated a still-ongoing, vigorous and vital debate about the relative roles of religion vs. politics in our individual lives and our collective life in society.

This, my friends, is evolution in action. And its perpetual dialectic of thesis --> antithesis --> synthesis has an equal potential to transform both politics and religion.

May the "religion" of today be metamorphosed into the spirituality of tomorrow, so that we as a race can finally quit peg-legging around on the ground, and claim our wings.

DZ, you have my condolences also. My recent losses are siblings - I am now the only one left out of four. But your pain must be greater by far. Hang in there.

Meg, you are plainly a very good person, and it is a pleasure to read your posts. Even though I don't always agree. I am religious, Christian. What I can say about that in relation to personal loss, and this is from my own experience, is that religion gives comfort. But it does not lessen the pain.

Arminius

Meg - I hope DZ responds to your remark about it being hard to be an atheist during a great personal loss.

I suppose there are a range of reactions, irrespective of religious beliefs, and I don't see that being an atheist automatically makes it harder.

DZ;

Hey, I feel for you. I have been in a place like the one you're in...but after 37 years it must be like a part of you is gone...that's a bit heavier than anything I've experienced. It would help if you were religious wouldn't it? It's hard to be an atheist sometimes, if you know what I mean. But you are obviously a smart guy with inner resources that will slowly help you through this. The cottage in France sounds like it'll help too.
Stay away from sentimental music for a while. Keep busy, and read a lot,and take up painting or something.France is so pretty,and watercolors are so easy once you get into it.
I bet everybody gives you the same advice,right?
I'm sure you know what your doing and you've probably found ways to cope already by the sound of it. My condolences on your great loss DZ. Be strong.
And take care...Meg

The bit about the coming priest shortage owing to young folk not wanting to go near that 'profession' anymore. Well it would be hard to wear those priestly garments and not feel like a child molester now after all we have heard about the 'goings on' in those holy places. It's not a frock anyone can wear with pride exactly is it? And to call yourself a priest these days is not exactly as 'cool' as being a lawyer or physician anymore if it ever was. The sex scandals have really destroyed the image of religion, and the catholic church in particular.
Priests one day will go the way of the sorcerers and the alchemists and the astrologers.Just hope its in my lifetime.

Hi, Arminius - I noticed you wrote "religious SLASH spiritual." Does this suggest some ambiguity or wiggle room?

If your "religion/spirituality" of the future eschews superstition, myth-as-fact or belief in the supernatural, it's OK by me.

Meg:

Nice post. Thanks.

In a year or two or three when I get past the loss of my wife, I hope I met someone like you. I am impossibly lonely these days, but I think that's the nature of losing a partner of 37 years.

I live in Portland, OR, but my little secret is a lovely small cottage in the town of Pau in SW France. Since I work at home, no one really knows where I am. So, I have been willing to work the funky hours and have spent months in France without antone knowing that I wasn't in Portland.

Anyway, thanks for the sweet post. I appreciated it.

It would be ridiculous to imagine the funny hats of religion still around in the year 3000, by which time we'll know so much more about everything.

Religion would have to give up the supernatural component and be totally down to earth like Buddhism and other meditative practices if it's going to survive even a hundred years. It's the supernatural part of religion that makes it so vulnerable to ridicule, and impossible to take seriously. This will be even more obvious in future years than it is now.

SC Cromett

Thank you. IMHO, there is nothing worse than losing your partner. After 37 years, it's hard to even get by a single day without my wife, but I'm learning. Thanks again.

I'm with Nic; it would seem inevitable that religion one day in the future would just fade away like it's been doing in Europe for years,(prior to the Muslim surge there).

When you consider how things have changed over time, and how un-influential the church is now compared to pre-enlightenment times when they had enormous power. The power to torture and kill, and to call all the shots regarding behavior and morals, even what people were allowed to think, and what a sin was.

Now they are virtually powerless; in my world especially. In the UK while I was growing up, churches were being turned into Bingo halls, and they filled up for the first time in decades.

Look how quick cigarette smoking went from being really hip and de rigueur in the old days, to being a disgusting habit these days. Religion's going that way already.

Times DO change.

Hi, E Fav,

Don't hold your breath. Us religious/spiritual types are here to stay. And, even if the majority don't hold true, some of us still try.

This whole thread escapes me - I came in late.

Arminius

Nick Brady, you say: "If religion isn't dead by 2100, then maybe by 2200. Or, if not, then by 2600, or the year 3000.The future is a long time.We can't remain superstitious forever. We're too smart."

Sounds good. Hope you're right.

B Meadows - Dont' kid yourself. Just because a majority of Americans identify as Christians, doesn't mean they "strive to follow the teachings of Jesus and his gospel is first and foremost in their lives."

-

Given that the majority of Americans strive to follow the teachings of Jesus and his gospel is first and foremost in their lives, I think this is a relevant question.

Jed Rothwell;

Interesting piece. In terms of whether people will believe in religion and the supernatural in the future, I would say absolutely not.

I say that because the future is a very, very long time. A hundred years ago religion had much more authority and influence that it does today,and a larger percentage of people believed than believe now. In a hundred years time, it will be that much weaker again, I would think.

By the way have you been reading of the acute shortage of priests these days. Especially in Ireland where very few young people want to become men of the cloth. The sexual abuse of children by priests doesn't help, folk don't trust the clergy anymore. When the current priests retire, they will be hard pressed to replace them. It has little status now.

I think we are still on a growth curve, intellectually, scientifically and educationally.
I believe that the day will come when religion will seem as quaint and foolish as astrology and fairy-watching now seem to us; though at earlier times everyone took such things seriously.

We are growing all the time,it seems to me, and sooner or later religion, and superstition will fall by the wayside along with all the other quaint old customs.

If religion isn't dead by 2100, then maybe by 2200. Or, if not, then by 2600, or the year 3000.
The future is a long time.We can't remain superstitious forever. We're too smart.

C'mon Jed One More Time!!! Just so we get it.

DZ.

So that's who you are. Greetings.

Maybe we were meant for each other!
I have a couple of degrees, one in psych, one in social work. I'm in my late forties (OK! I'm 51)
Read lots, like to hike and travel.(Done India, as they say, and most Asian countries, with a backpack)
My sweetie dumped me for a younger model. I'm an atheist and since 9'11 I've been an active one, as I do think it's important to confront superstitious thinking if we ever want our world to become rational, and sensible, and just. As an English woman I'm always amazed at the nonsense that people are encouraged to believe this side of the pond. And not just encouraged, but actually force-fed religious superstition from the cradle to the grave. If we ever want it to stop we have to confront it and let people know how silly it all is to the un-indoctrinated among us.

Anyway. nice to meet you DZ. You sound like an awfully interesting guy.

speed123 wrote:

"Great post (although I disagree with the idea that the reformation was an improvement from the Catholic model . . ."

Well, it was more successful and dynamic, and it triggered the Counter Reformation of Catholic Church in response. Perhaps it succeeded mainly because kings wanted to establish national churches instead of sending money to Rome, but I think there was widespread discontent among the people as well. They were disgusted by the corrupt Renaissance Popes.

Also, I would say it was more successful in that the scientific revolution got underway mainly in Protestant England, while Catholic nations remained conservative. That is over simplified I realize, and perhaps it was partly a coincidence, but Bacon's work is not only permeated with Christian influence, it specifically with Protestant influence, with its emphasis on individuals using their own judgment and acting on their own authority.

During the Reformation, several brave people translated the Bible into vernacular languages (English, German, French). These translators then had to hotfoot around Europe from one hiding place to another, as the Catholic Church tried to track them down and burn both the translated bibles and the translators at the stake for heresy. The Church wanted a lock on information: it did not want people reading the Bible on their own, in their own language. One of the translators admonished the Church saying: "the day will come when any plowman knows the Bible as well as a Bishop does." When I read that I thought, "Ah ha, that was the origin of the scientific and modern academic ethos that everyone should be literate and educated, everyone should have access to knowledge, and people should read original sources." These ideas were also essential to the success of science and technology, and they emerged directly from Christianity. Again, I do not think these ideas would have taken off in Edo Japan, were NOBODY was allowed to act on his own authority, even when it came to picking your clothing, dishes, or the design of your house. Everything was specified by government rules and regulations. Not only that but government used to keep all kinds of stuff secret, including even some laws. (How you were supposed to obey a law that was kept secret is beyond me.)

Bacon was quite religious, as was the first and greatest modern scientist, Newton. I doubt they would be happy to know that most scientists today are atheists, and that the enterprise they launched would eventually supplant much of religion. I predict that in the long term (maybe another 400 years?) assuming the world grows wealthier and technological progress continues, religion will play little or no role in public life, and only a few people will believe in it. Only the moderate, rational sects will survive. Not the ones that advocate flying airplanes into buildings! I doubt that religion will ever die out completely, but if only ~10% believe in it, it will cause no harm.

"Have you read Taylor? A Secular Age? I think you would really enjoy it."

Haven't seen it. I just read the review. It sounds interesting.

speed123 wrote:

"Great post (although I disagree with the idea that the reformation was an improvement from the Catholic model . . ."

Well, it was more successful and dynamic, and it triggered the Counter Reformation of Catholic Church in response. Perhaps it succeeded mainly because kings wanted to establish national churches instead of sending money to Rome, but I think there was widespread discontent among the people as well. They were disgusted by the corrupt Renaissance Popes.

Also, I would say it was more successful in that the scientific revolution got underway mainly in Protestant England, while Catholic nations remained conservative. That is over simplified I realize, and perhaps it was partly a coincidence, but Bacon's work is not only permeated with Christian influence, it specifically with Protestant influence, with its emphasis on individuals using their own judgment and acting on their own authority.

During the Reformation, several brave people translated the Bible into vernacular languages (English, German, French). These translators then had to hotfoot around Europe from one hiding place to another, as the Catholic Church tried to track them down and burn both the translated bibles and the translators at the stake for heresy. The Church wanted a lock on information: it did not want people reading the Bible on their own, in their own language. One of the translators admonished the Church saying: "the day will come when any plowman knows the Bible as well as a Bishop does." When I read that I thought, "Ah ha, that was the origin of the scientific and modern academic ethos that everyone should be literate and educated, everyone should have access to knowledge, and people should read original sources." These ideas were also essential to the success of science and technology, and they emerged directly from Christianity. Again, I do not think these ideas would have taken off in Edo Japan, were NOBODY was allowed to act on his own authority, even when it came to picking your clothing, dishes, or the design of your house. Everything was specified by government rules and regulations. Not only that but government used to keep all kinds of stuff secret, including even some laws. (How you were supposed to obey a law that was kept secret is beyond me.)

Bacon was quite religious, as was the first and greatest modern scientist, Newton. I doubt they would be happy to know that most scientists today are atheists, and that the enterprise they launched would eventually supplant much of religion. I predict that in the long term (maybe another 400 years?) assuming the world grows wealthier and technological progress continues, religion will play little or no role in public life, and only a few people will believe in it. Only the moderate, rational sects will survive. Not the ones that advocate flying airplanes into buildings! I doubt that religion will ever die out completely, but if only ~10% believe in it, it will cause no harm.

"Have you read Taylor? A Secular Age? I think you would really enjoy it."

Haven't seen it. I just read the review. It sounds interesting.

DZ

My condolences on the loss of your wife.

Meg:

Who is DZ? An excellent question. I am a 60 year old white guy from Portland, OR. I am an atheist. I am a leftist. I have a PhD in European history, and I have an MS in computer science. I am an SVP in technology at a giant bank. I was married for 37 years until my wife died 2 1/2 months ago. I'm into reading, kayaking, hiking, film, food and clothing. Anything else?

Andrew,

You have to be kidding:

"If you are mistaken, Meg,it's because they really are religious automatons who all sound the same."

Do we have a funny smell, too? Ha!

Don't be simpletons; this is the same logic used by bigots and racists...

How many time do secularist use the trite refrain: religious are sheep, ignorant, infantile, conformists etc.?

You guys seem to sound very much alike (automatons, if you will) on this point of your argument... ;)

Jed,

Great post (although I disagree with the idea that the reformation was an improvement from the Catholic model - extreme capitalism and individualism is the result of the Puritans et al as opposed to Catholic fraternity, charity and art)!

Have you read Taylor? A Secular Age? I think you would really enjoy it.

Also check out the blog I was hawking earlier: The Immanent Frame.

DZ, thanks for the defense - I am working on being well read but I would not call my self sophisticated.

I always post under this screen name, btw.

And, don't you find it boring to agree with each other all the time? Meg seems to be a spoil sport on here...

On a lighter note;

Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man -- living in the sky -- who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time! But He loves you.

-- George Carlin Politically Incorrect, May 29, 1997

Here we go again. I'm out of here. Bye all.

Morning Speed123. Quoting Epicurus is a step up from eternally quoting the wholly babble.
good on ya!

The man who best knows how to meet external threats makes into one family all the creatures he can; and those he can not, he at any rate does not treat as aliens; and where he finds even this impossible, he avoids all dealings, and, so far as is advantageous, excludes them from his life.

If you reject absolutely any single sensation without stopping to distinguish between opinion about things awaiting confirmation and that which is already confirmed to be present, whether in sensation or in feelings or in any application of intellect to the presentations, you will confuse the rest of your sensations by your groundless opinion and so you will reject every standard of truth. If in your ideas based upon opinion you hastily affirm as true all that awaits confirmation as well as that which does not, you will not avoid error, as you will be maintaining the entire basis for doubt in every judgment between correct and incorrect opinion.

Meg;
You may well be right.
It crossed my mind too, but like EFavorite says,
they all sound alike anyway,so it could be anybody.
The indoctrinated have to sound like robots otherwise
they are not fully indoctrinated.

So maybe, when you hear one
you've heard them all.

If you are mistaken, Meg,it's because they really are
religious automatons who all sound the same.

E.Favorite. Daniel itld.

Its just the deja-vu I feel for the 'attenion seeking' element of Speed's behavior. He doesn't say his piece and eventually go away....he stays and seems to suffer the put downs and the insults; (that often bother us more than it does him).
It's the M.O. which is different from, say, Canyon Shearer or many of the other religious types...this one seems like a kid and changes names like changing hats. It's the persistence that's odd, I would say.

I think you guys remember David T, and Angela B a few weeks ago when we had this discussion then about the odd way David took all the attention away from the main discussion, while everybody rushed to disagree with him and put him down...and then felt awful about dumping on the guy like a pack of wolves. Its like 'here we go again'.

At a certain point we should give up on him and let him rant away undisturbed...like old Josevz.

Of course i may be mistaken, as DZ suggests.
But then again...who is DZ?

Daniel itld, They could be the same person.

Then again, fundamentalists tend to sound alike because they are spouting the same learned lines and bible verses.

Meg et al: No, Speed123 is actually nothing like Angela or the others. He's not a fundie for one thing. Angela and the others always claim they are not being hateful even though they are. Speed123 never makes any pretext, he just launches. Speed123 is also a lot smarter and better read than the others. Oh, he can be hateful, but he's a quite sophisticated troll not merely a whack job like the others.

Meg

About Speed123, you are right. I would like to ignore him, and I will try harder to ignore him in the future. However, I must admit, that when I am trying to explain my thoughts to someone as clueless as he is, it does help me understand myself and my own thinking a little better. After all, you cannot explain something to someone else, unless you understand it, yourself.

(For example, I have tried explaining the position of the British monarch to several of my friends, and I get in such a twisted up mess, that I realize, I don't really understand it either).

I have a question: do you really think that DavidT, Angela, the Moderate, and Speed123 and others are the same person? I notice that Angela and DavidT often use the exact same phrases. Plus, these people don't seem to have personalities like most of the regular posters, whom you sort of get to know, even if you disagree with them. Can this / these person(s) really be that nutz?

Chris Everett wrote:

"The idea that christianity is the origin of compassion, science, democracy, etc, is absurd. On need only look at Buddhism, read Epicurus (or Lucretius), or read Cicero . . ."

Please do not exaggerate my position. I did not say that Christianity is the sole origin. I said there were other important contributions such as Greek philosophy and Moslem science. However, it is a fact that the Enlightenment arose in Christian society, and if you read Francis Bacon you see that Christian ideas permeate his philosophy. (I consider Bacon more important even than Newton.)

As I said, peasants strongly criticized the church and government in the 16th and 17th centuries using language and ideas of human equality, the value of individual lives, and human rights. More important, the Church apologized. In Japan those peasants would have been killed. I cannot imagine democracy arising there, or in China. Buddhism has much to recommend it, but it gave no support to right, individualism, liberty, and especially not to the idea that society can progress. This idea hardly existed in Europe when Bacon wrote, and he was one of the first to discuss it seriously.

"In fact, even within the Western historical narrative, which was written from the perspective of Christian power, the bellweather events heralding democracy appear to be PRECISELY those events representing movements AWAY from established Christianity."

That's true, and it is important. To put it another way, Christianity gave rise to its own successor: modern democracy with more equality and greater liberty than the Church would ever have countenanced. Some churches are still fighting this. This is bit like saying the passive, relatively ineffectual NAACP civil rights tactics of the 1930s and 40s gave rise to the 1960s movement, which was effective.

I would never suggest that French peasants in 1600 had anything like a modern notion of human equality or rights, but compared to Japanese peasants they did insist that individuals have value and that the Church should serve the community.

"All these things conspired to produce democracy as enlightenment-in-action, IN OPPOSITION TO the historical context of Christian power."

Yes, indeed. Just as corruption in the Catholic church gave rise to the reformation. The thing is, Catholic and Protestant churches are very similar (especially when compared to institutions in other civilizations). The Protestant church was an improvement or outgrowth, not a radical replacement. A radical replacement would be the ongoing introduction of Christianity into Korea.

Modern political Democracy was in opposition to Christian power, but it used the philosophy, ideas, and ideals of Christianity itself to justify that opposition. The political philosophy of people like Jefferson, and the scientific philosophy of Bacon is richly imbued with these ideas. We take them for granted and we are so used to them that we fail to see them. We don't even need to be told about them. When you read Fukuzawa's book (which has been translated into English I think) you see that he parses out these ideas and introduces them one at a time for his audience of Edo Japanese readers. It makes you realize how influential Christianity has been.

C'mon guys...Speed123 is the same dolt who always gets everbody's attention on these threads by his persistent comments on god's existence.

Sometimes he's David T, other times he's Angela,and sometimes numerous other names, like Moderate etc.

He's a religious whacko who is always opposed to common sense,and can be identified by his lack of learning, his appalling English, and his insistence on the 'reality' of the supernatural.

He has often dominated the conversation on these threads by saying things so silly that everyone responds to his drivel by trying to straighten him out. It is the same guy all the time.

Ignore him, and he'll go away.

Daniel itld. You should know this...you have had many 'conversations' with him...they aways take the same pattern. It's the same guy.

For Speed123

You said you are not a theologian. To me, a theologian is the person who writes the theology-script for everyone else to follow.

You sure sound like a theologian to me.

And since you have confessed to being a Catholic, isn't it out of your place, to be promoting your own brand of theology? Isn't it one of the marks of the Catholic Church that theology is church-approved, from the top down?

If the Catholic Church were not presently powerless, and cradled in a benvolent and harmless Italy, wouldn't you be in danger of prosecution for heresy, as were many of your Catholic brethren, who made the same mistakes as you are now making, in the far distant past?

I think what most of your arguments are not really geared to conversation or discussion, but boil down to "heckling." If that is your aim and your goal, then I guess I would admit that are you pretty good at it and you win most of the arguments.

But what good does it do you? What do you get out of it, to be triumphant in your heckling campaign? Neither you, nor anyone else gets any new insites, and even more, you actually repel people, and ruin, even further, the credibility and reputation of Christianity.

Why did God make me?

The answer is simple: God made me to know him, to love him, to serve him and to be happy with him in heaven.

At least that's what they taught us in catechism.

J,

for the time being the meeting of the two religions does make sense, on a very practical and operational and historical level, even if the philosophical base is purely fictional. It is an intermediary step, "sub specie aeternitatis". Thanks.

Speed 123,

you said, quoting Chesterton: "The madman have no doubts?" That is what is usually attributed to the faithful. They have no doubts. Dangerous quotation, for you, not for us, 123!

Are atheists materialists? An old silly misconception you are touting all the time. The feeling with looking at the grandeur of nature is not materialistic. I thought you had grasped that easy notion meanwhile.

Speed123,

It is obvious you are in need of some orthodox Catholocism deprogramming. We offer free of charge the following Five Step Program:

1. There was no physical resurrection (i.e. Heaven is a Spirit State)

2. And it therefore follows there was no ascension and no assumption.

3. There is/was no original sin. A&E were fictional characters living in mythical land.

4. And it therefore follows, baptism does not erase original sin since there is no sin to erase. Limbo therefore is a non-issue.

5. Jesus was crucified but details of the deed have little historic verification.

I am glad you are shocked, Neal; however, after all I am a not a theologian just as you are not a scientist.

I understand free will and grace and sin/redemption etc; however, you seem to assume that all faithful are set blindly in their beliefs.

It is a journey - just like any other form of knowledge. (I am a Catholic not a Calvinist/Protestant etc.)

I asked about physics because your asking me why God created the earth/humans et all is like me asking you to explain the origins of physics and why the laws are established the way they are.

For the rest of the secularists on here (esp Concerned) I will quote GK Chesterton:

"Only the madman and the materalist have no doubts"...

Goodnight.

I would ask, why do we have our sensory perceptions, and a brain which makes sense of our perceptions?

Because of evolution; we inherited these aspects of our physidal bodies from the animals from which we evolved. And they, in turn, evolved their physical bodies, with their sensory perceoptions so that they could navigate the landscape of their existence.

We also must navigate the landscape of our existence. But, we have expanded our landscape, both physically, and through our imaginations, something that animals could not do.

We can expand the landscape of our existene into the far distant past, and into the unmade future. We can imagine places that we could never go, other cities, other countries, other planets, even imaginary places. And think about all these imaginary landscapes, and what they must be like. At least some of us do.

But others do not. Some people live all their lives in a confined landscape, just as their animal progenitors have done. They have no need to know anything about science or how the world is put together and how it works, just as the animals have no need, nor even ability to know these things.

People who live this way, in a confined landscape, all their lives, have that in common with the lower animals, incuriousity, and an apathy towards knowledge. This is a vestigial inheritance of our animal progentors, and, I am afraid it is a human trait that is not going to go away.

Speed123

"Why are the laws of Physics established as they are and what is there source?"

This question indicates a mistake in your thinking. The notion of "laws of physics" arose from eighteenth century Anglo-French Enlightenment speculation on the recent successes in science, most specifically, Isaac Newton's formulation of the laws of mechanics.

However, there is no proof, evidence, or scientific explanation that proves that there is such a thing as "laws of physics" or even laws of nature. We have developed techniques, that is scientists have done this, to keep track of the patterns which we notice in our impressions of order. On this nothing more can be said, much less known.

Therefore, whatever you may believe about the nature of the universe, and the nature of existence, and the nature of intelligence and subjective consiousness can only be your speculation and a guess or a hope.

Believing this, that the world is set up in this way, and that we exist as a part of it, in this mysterious and unknowalbe way, tends to make a person a little more humble about the nature of ones own belief, and about the nature of belief in general, and tends to make one skeptical about the rigidly scripted theologies that abound in many and various forms.

I assume, of course, that you are not buying any of this, and will say that I am close-minded and some kind of a liberal Demmocrat, even though mere politics is the furthest thing from my mind, when I think of these things. But that is your proven pattern, in which I have confidence.

Each one of us has passed on to us a heritage of belief, which is determined by the setting into which we were born. They are not all equal or equally valid, but they all have one thing in common, that they are merely the setting, contingent on many variable things, from which all our belifs arise, and that since they are all so different and varied, they cannot all be true, and most proabably are all false, in the details of their rigidly scripted theologies.

Just knowing that is alot. I think that is a valid point of knowledge, which I can say with a high degree of certainty, I know.

Oh there "Reality Challenged" and Obfuscating Jihadist,

You apparently missed the title for the upcoming dialogue between the Pope and various Muslim religious leaders.

"FLAWS IN CATHOLICISM AND ISLAM- FINALLY THE TRUTH OF IT ALL"

And high on the agenda will be to remove all references to "pretty wingie thingies" in the NT and koran.

Speed123 aka Bible/Catholic Thumper, Fortune Teller and Severely Brainwashed in that Old Time Religion,

Fools are those who have read only the bible. God cannot be proud of such lazy creations!!!!

The reality of it all is that the "pew sitters" and "bowers" are coming to grips with the flaws in their religions and in ten years the religions of today will be unrecognizable or extinct as the "pretty and ugly wingie flying thingies" are finally buried in the piles of utter stupidity.

Speed123:--"Why did He create us?

How should I know...it is said that a god that you can fully understand is a god that is less than yourself (i.e. no god at all)

Why are the laws of physics established as they are? And what is their source?"

Why are you asking me questions about physics? I've never claimed to know anything about the subject. But since you asked, and as a non-scientist, it would seem that physics depends on nature.

Now back to the subject for which you claim some knowledge. Along with your catechism teacher, I'm actually shocked that you don't know why god created you. If you don't know something as basic as his intentions regarding your hide, how can you assume he's benevolent? How can you possibly know enough about him to recommend him to others?

While it's been my understanding that religion answers all the ultimate "why" questions, it's been my experience that when the rubber meets the road it's all just hand waving and wishful thinking.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinion/24davies.html?scp=1&sq=Paul+Davies&st=nyt

Neal,

Why did He create us?

How should I know...it is said that a god that you can fully understand is a god that is less than yourself (i.e. no god at all)

Why are the laws of physics established as they are? And what is their source?

Speed123:

I'm told that the Catholic god is eternal, omnipotent and omniscient. If that's true, then god knew--before he created the first speck of energy in the universe--that Adam and Eve would disobey him and that their descendants would inherit sinful natures with all the resulting wars, hate, death, greed, perversion and iffy grammar. Knowing in advance, as he did, that it was going to end in a train wreck, why did he create us?

Jed Rothwell,

Your post on the Edo period is interesting. I remember seeing an exhibit at the Smithsonian on the Edo period - as I rembember, it was among the largest cities in the world at the time, if not THE largest. I was blown away by the steelwork and lacquer, which seemed brand new.

The idea that christianity is the origin of compassion, science, democracy, etc, is absurd. On need only look at Buddhism, read Epicurus (or Lucretius), or read Cicero to realize that the foundations for ethics and the basic principles of science and democratic governance were understood long before Jesus was born. In fact, when I look at the trajectory of Greco-Roman culture, it seems to me that the real catastrophe was the adoption of Christianity by Constantine, which bore the fruit we now refer to as the dark ages. I'm not a history expert but I've never accepted the whole "decadent rome" explanation of history - it seems like yet another case of Christian apologia written by history's victor. Which is not to say that gladiator fights, etc, are ethical, but Christendom seemed to have its own (more Taliban-like) parallels such as witch burnings.

In fact, even within the Western historical narrative, which was written from the perspective of Christian power, the bellweather events heralding democracy appear to be PRECISELY those events representing movements AWAY from established Christianity. Cases in point: the intellectual worship of Aristotle by Aquinas (pre-Christian works that would not have survived Christian destruction were it not for Arabic translations); the Protestant rejection of established Christian papal authority; the undeniable truth of the Copernican/Galilean cosmology; the blatant irreligion of the French enlightenment (vive Voltaire!); and the metaphysical free-for-all of colonial America, which was largely out from under the thumb of the Church of England.

All these things conspired to produce democracy as enlightenment-in-action, IN OPPOSITION TO the historical context of Christian power. At the least, it begs the question of how much farther humanity would have progressed had Christianity NOT infected the culture of Rome. Looking at the American empire, it's fair to wonder if perhaps in some respects we are only NOW back to where we were 1700 years ago before Constantine took the Western world in the Christian direction.

Dear Gerry,

Your discussion of the faults and flaws of various religious figures makes some good points. Martin Luther does seem to have gone stone crazy in later life from some of what he said.

But does every stupid or criminal thing said or done by a religious person count against all religious people? If so, does the Red Chinese harvest of organs from prisoners for sale to the highest bidder count against all Atheists?

If so, why?

If not, why not?

Hint: The answer must apply equally to both cases to be correct.

Dear Speed123:

"Try to branch out from the defunct Freudian theory of the infantilization of belief and open your mind."

Good point. Funny that the guys grousing about exorcists in the Catholic church bought Freudian psychoanalytic faith healings and exorcisms hook line and sinker because a secular shaman whom they agreed with on religion preached it. :^))

Jon Mathew (Catholic),

Hello. Thanks for that article on the proposed Catholic/Muslim dialogue.

Yes, I am aware of that. The letter by the Muslim scholars/ulema was addressed to all Christian denominations/sect/church and what else is the proper thing to call.

The Vatican was initially reluctant, the Anglican church the most forthcoming, and the American evangelical churches balked the most. But I happy to see the Vatican agreed for their own reasons.

Must be terrifying for non-Catholics and non-Muslims to see us God-believers getting together to talk on global domination for belief in God, to purge godlessness and reinstate godliness, to promote spiritualism over materialism, and inbue faith over reason etc:)

Seriously, it is a good start. Too much frictions already on the ground from Nigeria to Indonesia.
The day the Vatican allow a mosque to be build within its sovereign compound, will the day the Saudi Arabians will allow a church to be build in in Mecca and Medina/Saudi Arabia? Only in Jesusalem can the three Abrahamic faiths have their respectivea and/or joint places of worship in the city it seems.

The Muslim scholars seems to be mischievous, don't they, in asking for a theological dialogue/discussion. The Vatican and some Catholic theologians knows this. As every Christian knows, Muslims are the ultimate heretics and most blasphemous on the Trinity and other core Catholic/Christian creed and dogma.

So, the Vatican came back with proposed social issues for discussion. Easier to talk on Muslim terrorism and extremism and rights of missionary work and churches to be build in Muslim states unhindered rather than on abortion or family planning.

The dialogue between the designated respective leaders of our faiths after centuries of armed crusades and lesser jihads in the name of our respective faiths is timely especially since Pope Benedict 16 quoted one such bit of Christian/Muslim dialogue in centuries past in his famous/infamous speech that got Muslims riled up.

So, let the dialogue be continued from centuries past in the present and in future. Of course none of this makes sense to the anti-supernaturalists and anti-organised/institutionalised religions atheists, but we both know the power of faith among our fellow adherents on the ground, at the personal level and how they drive the political, economic and social agendas in societies.

It would be fun to have a dialogue with American Christian evangelical groups in the US especially since they refused the proposal for a dialogue. After all, they the ones now giving Christianity a bad name by their words and deeds in the Muslim world and what they say and do on Islam and Muslims in the US. Hard to say if Christianity for them is a "commodity" or "product" to be marketed instead of faith judging by their activities.

In spite of my personal disquiet and anger on what Ratzinger, as Cardinal and Pope, think and said about other Christian denominations and faiths, including Jews and Buddhists, I have to agree with him that excessive pursuit of materialism and personal gains can and do destroy our souls. The American Christian evangelicals seem to have lost their own souls in their pursuit to save souls, to have lost, or cast aside, ethical values as the ends would justify the means. I don't see them as any better than their Muslim mirrors, which, luckily for non-Muslims, focus only on Muslims in reminding not on the Right Path as a personal spiritual and temporal quest in line with the Five Pillars, but on a certain and specific Right Path as they see fit and to be complied by all. Can't have that. They are not God.

Salam and Pax

Thank you and best regards

"J"

speed123 wrote:

"You atheists - no matter that the popular culture is on your side - are sure easy to get riled up.

Why so sensitive? Must be something deeper..."

You wish! See:

Cognitive dissonance

Psychological projection (or projection bias)

Chris Everett quoted Habermas:

"Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization."

As I mentioned above, I think this is true in one sense. Christianity made vital contributions to enlightenment philosophy, which did lead to liberty, human rights, and later science. Of course there were other important contributions, such as ancient Greek democracy and not so ancient Arabic numbers, chemistry, and so on.

Habermas probably thinks that you have to continue being Christian after you launch modern civilization. That modernity does not supersede Christianity but rather requires it as a consistent replenishment. I don't see any evidence for that. Once modernity is launched, most of Europe dispensed with the religion part, and they are fine without it.

Getting back to the seminal stage when modernity arose, I doubt that other traditions would have resulted in modern, liberal, scientific civilization.

Japanese Tukugawa (Edo-period) society is a fascinating test case. They were mostly cut off from Western progress, and yet they made enormous strides in many fields, such as medicine and forestry and mathematics. Perhaps, eventually, a Japanese version of Francis Bacon would have arisen. They might have independently discovered the experimental method, triggered a explosion of knowledge, and perhaps this might have brought about democracy and other modern institutions. We can speculate that might have happened . . . but look at what actually did happen when Japanese society discovered modern science in 1868.

Here was a society primed for the scientific revolution. They were widely literate, well organized, disciplined, they had great respect for learning and scholarship. So the scientific revolution knocked them off their feet. They took to it immediately, with unprecedented speed and thoroughness, unlike any other non-western society. They also bought into democracy and mass education, which -- they correctly perceived -- was closely tied in with science, and essential to its success. Fukuzawa's book "An Encouragement of Learning" describing democracy, rationality and science was a smash hit, and one of the most influential books in Japanese history. They soon established a Parliament, universities and other institutions essential to civilization.

But in the 1930s, Japanese history took a horrible, tragic turn away from modernity and democracy. They reverted back to the most horrible, cruel, fascistic Tokugawa traditions, which they topped off with a newly minted form of Shinto especially designed promote slavish Emperor worship and suicidal militaristic mania. The weakness was there all along, from 1868 on many people despised modernity and tried to keep the repressive traditions alive. Under the stress of the depression they turned back to tyranny. So did German society of course, and so did U.S. Confederate states during the Civil War. If these states had survived, I expect they would still be guided by the "lights of perverted science," as Churchill said, just as the ancient Greeks with their slaves were. A civilization based on repression and cruelty is unlikely to make technological progress.

When the Japanese people were liberated by the U.S. in 1945, they quickly re-established civilization and decency. The Occupation was successful because many Japanese people hated fascism and wanted to be modern again. They were used to voting in elections, and thought it was their right to vote, and they hated the militarists. If that tradition had not been established for 60 years before fascism took over, the Occupation would have failed, just as the modern occupation of Iraq has failed. You can't impose these values from outside. The failure of Japanese civilization in the 1930s shows how difficult it is to impose these values from the inside!

I think it is unlikely that these values would arise organically, on their own, from civilizations that had not experienced centuries of Christian proto-democracy and proto-equality, of the kind I discussed above in the reference to the book "The World We Have Lost."

I also think that no civilization even now is immune to regression back into a barbaric state. Countries like America and Japan are stable and wealthy and unlikely to fall apart, but it is not unthinkable. There are still some Emperor-worshiping violent fanatics in Japan, and there are probably millions of people in the U.S. want to impose fascistic theocracy. Many people in the U.S. despise academic freedom, science and technology, and would happily destroy them.

You atheists - no matter that the popular culture is on your side - are sure easy to get riled up.

Why so sensitive? Must be something deeper...

Nice to learn from you what I "accept".
And science certainly must be proud that you accept "her", wow!

The free and deep feeling of wonder and admiration when, as an example, looking through a microscope doesn't show in a microscope, wizard!

My name is spelled D a n i e l;

not D a n i a l.

I guess you blew it. You're not the smartest guy that ever lived after all.

You can use that phrase any time you would like, Danial ;)

Dear Dr. Speed123, Smartest Guy that Ever Lived

You will let my words speak for themselves?

Wow!

I guess there is a first time for everything.

Gerry, I am out the door; however, I am not saying that nature and science are not wonders - they are!

I am saying that you cannot use science to explain or control or determine the totality of human existence.

I accept science; however, you cannot accept anything that does not show under the microscope.

PS- the most beautiful art/music and inspired literature has been inspiration by God and faith and transcendence...not science. Have you read Dostoevsky? Tolstoy? Green? Oconnor? Yeats? Elliot? Kerouac? Chesterton? Tolkin?

Open you eyes and become a true "freethinker"

I am not scared of science, but you are scared of God! (as you should be)

PPS - I will let Daniel's words speak for themselves..

Gerry.

Priceless post...great reading. Danke.

Speed123;

There you go again...Chris did NOT say he liked the blog.
What he said was that it was a bunch of twisted obscurantist apologia.
That's the problem Speediest. You ignore what Chris actually said, and make up what you wish he'd said.
Doesn't truth mean anything to you religious folk?

Dear Mr. Speedo123, Your Grand Imperial Wizard of all Universal Understanding, Best Friend of Jesus, and Interpreter for God, from Divine Language into Simpleton English:

Greetings!

You are ignorant, for now, meaning without knowledge.

But you don't have to stay ignorant. I wish I knew a way to rouse you from your ignorant bliss. So that you could know a few things, instead of being everybody else's ignorant fool and general Faith Forum clown.

Speed 123,

why shouldn't Andrew find nature beautifully mysterious?

And what a silly trick, what a straw-man you put up when describing the greatest human attempt to observe and understand nature, aka science, as having to do with "cold stats, facts and figures". You certainly don't know what you are talking about.

My feelings of admiring the wonders of nature, the galaxies, the incredible perfection of tiny, almost invisible insects, the miraculous forms and colors of submarine life, the beauty of a Beethoven symphony or a picture of Rembrandt are certainly not inferior to yours, with your auxiliary additional crutch of a god for LACK of understanding and admiration.

Religion is a reduction of the greatness of nature to the smallness of limited human fantasy, admiration and openness. The "faithful" install a proxy where their vacuum of knowledge begins.

Maybe you are a candidate for the new schools the Pope is going to put up to instruct 3000 new exorcists. A wonderful and final means to drive the devil out of us atheists.

Dear Mr. Speed123, Your Royal Grand Imperial Wizard, Brainiest Guy that Ever Lived:

You said,

"Typical...you can't use logic to defend your utilitarian/deterministic philosophies so you resort to name calling: nit-wit, infantile, superstitious etc. etc."

But I didn't call you infantile or superstitious; I just said that you are a nit-wit.

(Which you are).

Everyone knows it; I know it; God knows it; Susan knows it; your Mamma knows it.

You can say it ain't so, but we all know it is. Okay?

123down it goes, sugar and all. Attaboy Speediest.

Hello Chris,

Glad you liked the blog!

It is a great one; however, you should try to get to posts by Charles Taylor himself as he uses much less terminology and focuses on history + standard philosophy (Kant, Nietzsche, St Thomas, Rousseau etc.) attempts to explain how we arrived where we are today - a secular age - for better or worse.

There are, as you say, some major discoveries along the way.

Gotta run - peace!

Speedo...Speedie...time to take your pill love.

Take it for mommy.

Good boy.

I like what someone posted here by A.C.Grayling of an old lady in Cork, Ireland, who was asked if she believed in leprechauns, and she said "I don't, but they're there anyway."

Riiiight, Dannyboy -

Typical...you can't use logic to defend your utilitarian/deterministic philosophies so you resort to name calling: nit-wit, infantile, superstitious etc. etc.

All too common for those who cannot defend their ideas beyond the pop-wisdom of relativism and disbelief.

Speed123,

We'll have to agree to disagree. I read the first secular_age post and to me it was just a bunch of twisted obscurantist apologia. I know there is a long history of this sort of thing in the Catholic religious tradition but as far as I can tell it's merely PSEUDO-intellectual; it has the superficial traits of intellectual rigor - complexity, vocabulary, references, etc. But it's not put into the service of DISCOVERING anything; it's just there to reinforce the existing belief structure and provide it with diversionary ammunition against anyone who might criticize it. Perhaps I'm missing out, but that's a chance I'll take.

I DO thank you, though. It's not the kind of thing I see every day, even if it didn't have the desired effect.

There is enormous pressure to believe in a God, no matter where you are born. It goes without question that if you're born in Pakistan you'll almost certainly be a Muslim whether you like it or not.
In India, if you're not Muslim you'll probably be Hindu; and god help you if you are one of the lower caste or casteless. Even in the West, atheism is not entirely respectable, and there's always a bit of an expectation that good guys are religious, and we're not sure about atheists yet.
In the US its hard to escape the indoctrination, religion being so prevalent; and a God is believed in as a matter of course, like Santa Claus.
So I feel for those like Speed12, and his alter-ego Spiderman2, and other supernaturalists, because it's not their fault. I blame the religious culture that prevails in North America well after its best before date, which was several hundred years ago.
I'm hoping the writings of the brilliant scientists Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and the philosopher ACGrayling will be instrumental in bringing this culture to its senses before religious idiocy kills us all.

Speed123 is just a nit-wit, unaware, somnambulent, cloistered, and sheltered, yet feeling pretty smart and even superior, in the very limited extend of his most abbreviated knowlege. He is kind of pitiful, isn't he?

I feel right sorry for him, but I cannot imagine how to argue with him; what is the point in trying?

Andrew,

Read Charles Taylor (all 800 pages) and get back to me...you are obviously not capable to see the larger picture at this point.

Positivism is not a sound philosophy to base your life on.

PS - you cannot disprove the transcendental...

Like the man said...one shouldn't be so open minded that one's brains fall out.

Speed123, there is NO reason to believe that a supernatural world exists. Simply no reason. Not one.

You can believe it all you like. But it still ain't there. And neither is your God.

The supernatural is just another word for the imagination, where anything can exist. But that's not the real world. You only THINK it is.

Hey Chris,

Try the blog on Taylor's book: "a secular age"

http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/category/secular_age/

Or the argument between Mark Lilla and Taylor on Lilla's Stillborn god:

http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/category/the-stillborn-god/

You can thank me later!

Andy,

Funny that you use the words "beautifully mysterious" in your description of the limited, non-belief of secular humanism.

What is mysterious about your cold stats, facts and figures which you think you can explain our entire existence with?

As for my, I was raised as a liberal humanist and found it limiting to beauty and mystery that you speak of...I am now a Roman Catholic - and am free to truly think and experience the wonder of the world.

Try to branch out from the defunct Freudian theory of the infantilization of belief and open your mind.

Start with the Immanent Frame:
http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/

A blog of the social science research council.

Jacoby and Hitchens are simpletons compared to the intellectuals found on this blog.

The religious START from the REALITY that GOD is actually and totally REAL. No ifs or buts.
Everything learned afterwards has to fit into this REALITY. GOD is the TRUTH. If other truths don't fit, then those other truths must be dismissed. It is crucial that no new idea be admitted unless it fits with the first cause...The reality of GOD.

And if you believe that you'll believe anything.

I couldn't help but follow Speed123's link. The first essay I read started out reasonably enough, and was obviously written by a schooled individual (Robert Bellah), but contained stuff like this:

"But if philosophy has the moral equivalent of revelation, religious revelation, I would argue, has always cried out for reason. Habermas himself has a remarkable commentary on the First of the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses, 'You shall have no gods but me.' From a philosophical point of view, the first commandment expresses that ‘leap forward’ on the cognitive level which granted man freedom of reflection, the strength to detach himself from vacillating immediacy, to emancipate himself from his generational shackles and the whims of mythical powers."

This is such incredible double speak that I had to Wikipedia this Habermas fellow. He appears to be a prominent philosopher who is "methodical atheist" who believes, among other things, that "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization."

Modern-day scholasticism, as far as I can tell. I'm sticking with Susan.

Daniel itld;

Greetings...you ask;

...how to rouse the "somnambulant" people into some tiny sense of awareness; how to motivate their curiosity?

First,let's stop indoctrinating them into believing in magic and the supernatural.

Otherwise they end up like Speed123, Spiderman2, and Mo; totally out of whack with the real world, and lost in the world of their superstitious imaginations.

Once indoctrinated (or just plain being raised) into believing in the patently untrue does obvious damage to how we perceive the real world...and for that reason we should always oppose religion, every chance we get. Let's teach the truth as we really know it, and put superstition behind us forever.

The real world is so awesome and beautifully mysterious, we don't need silly magical stories to replace this reality with infantile stories of gods and fairies.

Chris Everett – I didn’t go to Catholic school, but my friends and relatives who did were taught evolution. The deal is that God created the universe, then everything else happened – the big bang, evolution, Jesus, you name it.

In Sunday school, we just learned catechism – the rules of the church. Nothing refuting or supporting science was ever mentioned. Likewise, kids who went to catholic school learned science in science class and religion in religion class. Totally separate. Catholic school was known for being tougher academically than public school and catholic school kids did well on their college boards.

Daniel ITLD – It’s good to be missed. All’s well –I had limited internet access for a while.

Regarding Evolution, it was not a separate subject. I studied it as a part of Biology class – like I learned photosynthesis in biology class. Also, I feel like the basics of evolution was something I always knew, so maybe my parents told me about it to. That humans and apes are related always seemed perfectly obvious to me.

Daniel in the Lion's Den wrote:

‘”...they are stranded on the bank of the River of Time'

I like that. May I add it to my collection of memorable word-strings?"

Of course. I must have heard it somewhere. Probably from Arthur Clarke, who -- incidentally -- wrote somewhere that the Catholic Church accepted evolution as far back as 1911. The most recent Pope has been grousing about it but the previous ones did not. The Church does not assert that animals popped up fully-formed 6,000 years ago, when Eve hid her boobs with ready-made long hair. (See the wonderful display at the Creationist Museum.) Naturally, they think evolution has the undetectable invisible Hand of God behind it, but they say that about everything, and in their case the belief is so rarified -- the hand so invisible -- it hardly matters. It resembles "luminous aether" just before Einstein dispatched that notion in 1905. It was there but not there for all intents and purposes.

Many Catholic scientists have made important contributions, and the Church is not anti-science or anti-intellectual. It is only when they imagine they have "infallibly defined that the universe" that they go off the rails.

"I think of these people as being 'apathetic towards knowledge;' . . .

But how to rouse the 'somnamulent' people into some tiny sense of awareness; how to motivate their curiosity?"

Frankly, I do not think incurious people are a problem. Many people do not learn more than they needed to know, but they are productive members of society, and happy, and they cause no harm. It is fine as long as they do not oppose knowledge. There are vast stretches of knowledge that do not interest me, such as mathematics, advanced physics and cosmology. For that matter, I have never watched an opera or a baseball game, and the tea ceremony seems daft to me.

As Will Rogers put it, "It ain't what people don't know that's so dangerous. It's what people know -- that just ain't so." People who shrug their shoulders and express no opinion about a topic cause no harm. People who know nothing, read nothing, and yet who pontificate and publish unfounded assertions and attacks against research sometimes cause great harm. The worst case I know is the editor of Sci. Am., who bragged to me that he has read nothing about cold fusion because reading isn’t his job -- he actually BRAGGED about that! -- and yet he is certain it must be wrong, and that all cold fusion researchers are lunatics or criminals. See:

http://lenr-canr.org/News.htm#SciAmSlam

People like him, who have power in the scientific establishment and yet who violate fundamental principles and attack academic freedom are more of a threat than Creationists.

PS - Charles Taylor - author of "the secular age" is a practicing Catholic and, compared to him, Jacoby a the secular mental midget...

Good thing the press loves that pop-atheist crap she produces and gives her plenty of airtime...

The Washington Post blogs (and the entire paper) is a joke and is nothing more than a vehicle for reactionary secular humanists books sellers (Jacoby, Hitchens and Chopra come to mind)

Want real commentary and intellectual conversation on religion and philosophy and politics, there are plenty of great bolgs out there.

The Immanent Frame comes to mind:

http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/

If you thought Hitchens was great...you probably won't be able to follow true intellectual discourse found above...

Jed Rothwell:

"...they are stranded on the bank of the River of Time"

I like that. May I add it to my collection of memorable word-strings?

I think of these people as being "apathetic towards knowledge;" as being "unaware." They dwell in a world of ego-centricities, such as Helen Keller may have experienced before she learned the meaning of her first word, "water."

But how to rouse the "somnamulent" people into some tiny sense of awareness; how to motivate their curiosity?

Which organ if not their brain do catholics use for thinking and feeling and for constructing such strange intellectual "somersaults" to invent a "theistic" evolution?

Strange how a caste of priests can demand that a substantial part of humanity should simply ignore the huge research results of psychology, sociology, brain neurology, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, physiology, the whole basis of our modern existence - even the church's existence itself!

When did god create my soul? And which one did he create? I think, hopefully, it has evolved (changed) considerably since my parents' two cells were joined together, even since I was born.

The word "infallibly" is just for laughing out loud, considering the "infallible" definition of earth and sun and Galilei's punishment for discovering and telling the truth. It took the church three centuries to reluctantly correct this "infallibility", only to stumble into the next "infallibilities!"

How can anybody still believe these fabrications - incredible for me.

"While the Church permits belief in either special creation or developmental creation on certain questions, it in no circumstances permits belief in atheistic evolution."

The Church doesn’t permit belief in atheistic anything, since it is a religion. Evolution is neither theistic nor atheistic, science simply doesn’t address the supernatural element at all, it is only concerned with the observable world. I give the Roman Catholics some credit for this issue if nothing else, at least they deal with the issue of the observable world far more realistically than do Bible literalists who are obviously, provably in error when they argue against valid scientific data with scripture.

Of course, being a freethinker myself I don’t think any divine being exists or has anything to do with evolution or anything else.

WWAD?

www.catholic.com is quoted:

"Concerning cosmological evolution, the Church has infallibly defined that the universe was specially created out of nothing."

Wow! Imagine writing a thing like that! The "Church" (that is to say, a bunch of guys wearing funny clothes) assert that THEY can "infallibly define" how the universe was created.

Right there, in those words, you are looking at a 400-year-wide gap. This is the core difference between religion and science. They think that people define what is and what isn't, whereas in 1620, Francis Bacon broke irrevocably with the past and wrote:

"Man, as the minister and interpreter of nature, does and understands as much as his observations on the order of nature, either with regard to things or the mind, permit him, and neither knows nor is capable of more."

Religion is infallibly certain. Bacon (and all scientists after him) know only degrees of assurance -- a balance of certain and uncertain that can never reach an absolute at either end.

If you want to know what it would be like traveling through time and dealing with ancient people, read www.catholic.com. I sometimes think the gap cannot be crossed. From my point of view, they are stranded on the bank of the River of Time, along with the Taliban and other fanatics. I cannot empathize with them, and they cannot grasp my way of thinking. Bacon described experiments in a way that is so thoroughly modern and self-evident to me, it might as well have been written this morning:

"It is our intention not only to open and prepare the [experimental] way, but also to enter upon it. The third part, therefore, of our work embraces the phenomena of the universe; that is to say, experience of every kind, and such a natural history as can form the foundation of an edifice of philosophy. For there is no method of demonstration, or form of interpreting nature, so excellent as to be able to afford and supply matter for knowledge, as well as to defend and support the mind against error and failure. But those who resolve not to conjecture and divine, but to discover and know, not to invent buffooneries and fables about worlds, but to inspect, and, as it were, dissect the nature of this real world, must derive all from things themselves. Nor can any substitution or compensation of wit, meditation, or argument, (were the whole wit of all combined in one,) supply the place of this labour, investigation, and personal examination of the world; our method then must necessarily be pursued, or the whole forever abandoned. But men have so conducted themselves hitherto, that it is little to be wondered at if nature do not disclose herself to them." - Novum Organum

This is the most profound, most productive, noble liberating and best idea in the history of our species. But to the people at www.catholic.com, it is terra icognita. They cannot cope with the truth, because it cancels out all that they believe in and live for.

It wasn't only Bacon who discovered the experimental method, but he made the biggest contribution, and he understood it and and explained it better than anyone before him, and better than most people understand today. I have met plenty of scientists who are as bad at applying Baconian principles as I am at algebra.

It is second nature to a modern person such as Chris Everett to espouse Baconian principles: "Knowledge OF the world comes FROM the world." It is hard for us to appreciate that it took astounding creativity and guts to publish this in 1620.

Religions and cultures that fight this idea cannot survive.

Man with the funniest hat:

There is no such thing as 'atheist evolution' - there is just evolution. What you described isn't evolution, it's religion.

I know that the Catholic Church may have specific doctrinal positions and requirements on certain things, and be less emphatic on other things. But over all, (I have researched this, and this is my belief) the Catholic Church has no over-arching, far-reaching, unified, codified "program" for being a Catholic or a Christian. It has instead, a gigantic volume of canon law, and the Pope, with his legalistic opinions, which he may apparently make up as he goes along.

It is sort of a gigantic hulking superstructure of an organization, that is immensely old and vestigially articulated with dysfunction on top of dysfunction, yet too vast and vascularly integrated into history and society, simply to push aside, snip away, or "deflaw."

From www.catholic.com:

What is the Catholic position concerning belief or unbelief in evolution? The question may never be finally settled, but there are definite parameters to what is acceptable Catholic belief.

Concerning cosmological evolution, the Church has infallibly defined that the universe was specially created out of nothing. Vatican I solemnly defined that everyone must "confess the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, as regards their whole substance, have been produced by God from nothing" (Canons on God the Creator of All Things, canon 5).

The Church does not have an official position on whether the stars, nebulae, and planets we see today were created at that time or whether they developed over time (for example, in the aftermath of the Big Bang that modern cosmologists discuss). However, the Church would maintain that, if the stars and planets did develop over time, this still ultimately must be attributed to God and his plan, for Scripture records: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host [stars, nebulae, planets] by the breath of his mouth" (Ps. 33:6).

Concerning biological evolution, the Church does not have an official position on whether various life forms developed over the course of time. However, it says that, if they did develop, then they did so under the impetus and guidance of God, and their ultimate creation must be ascribed to him.

Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that "the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God" (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are.

While the Church permits belief in either special creation or developmental creation on certain questions, it in no circumstances permits belief in atheistic evolution.

E Favorite; You're back. I hadn't seen you in a while. I hope everything is going ok.

And for Chris Everett:
My brother recently asked me, had I ever had a class in "Evolution" when I was in highschool or college. And I had to admit, that I had not. (He said that he had not either).

In fact, Evolution is generally not taught as a class, but as brief references, in other classes. And then if a person is interested, he can read more on it. And I suppose, at some point, if it relates to a college major, a person might take a class or classes in evolution.

Evolution is generally not taught formally as a class; it is instead a construction that supports much of what science explains. People who want to know about the world and about the universe learn about it as a they naturally satisfy their curiosity and seek to learn new things.

But then, scientific explanations, such as evolution may be perfectly plain, clear, and available for study, but may yet go unnoticed, by people who are apathetic towards knowledge. I am not so sure that this apathy towards knowledge is necessarily a by-product of religious study and belief. I think alot of people are "just made" that way.

We evolved the way we have, so that we might navigate our way through the world. Many of us seem to have a natural curiousity that is a basic part of our make-up, and goes well above and beyond what is needed to get us safely from one day to the next.

So, then, I suppose, that is why a great many of us do not have this curiosity, yet get along well-enough; a great many people are apathetic towards knowledge, and onlly want to know enough so that they can get tops off jars, work the tv remote, change gears in a car, and stuff like that, but don't want to know about evolution, and don't want to think about the nature of existence or things like subjective experience; it is too much trouble, mentally taxing, and has no utility in survival to be bothered with.

I think that many people have confined themselves to a landscape of limited experience, without much knowledge of anything beyond that landscape; and, others, travel far and to expereince as much and to find out as much about everything as they can.

The reality of it all is that the "pew sitters" and "bowers" are coming to grips with the flaws in their religions and in ten years the religions of today will be unrecognizable or extinct as the "pretty and ugly wingie flying thingies" are finally buried in the piles of utter stupidity.

Jimbo

My humble thanks. I only WISH I were Dawkins ; )

E Favorite,

Point taken, but I would respond by asserting (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that evolution was NOT taught to you in catholic school and it is NOT supported by the Vatican. Instead, you were taught (and the Vatican supports) a pseudoscientific fiction known as GUIDED evolution. Guided evolution denies the randomness of circumstance that underpins evolution as a scientific theory. Guided evolution sees God's hand in every little mutation, sexual encounter and selection pressure that has occurred over the past 4 billion years, and asserts that it has been PURPOSEFUL and INTENDED, leading to mankind as he is today. It UNDERMINES the very notion of science - that the world we see can be explained naturalistically without recourse to supernaturalism. The idea that guided evolution is evolution is just another example of BAD faith by people OF faith.

Would the Vatican agree that in the future, circumstances might be such that humanity goes into decline, or extinct altogether, allowing some other life form (squirrels perhaps, given their nimble little fingers) to evolve into the dominant species, perhaps becoming even more intelligent than man is now? I doubt it. Why? Because they fundamentally don't believe in the scientific method. Because their version of evolution isn't science. They've simply decided to stick with a strict "God of the gaps" strategy to promote their superstition, rather than attempting to deny objective evidence outright like the fundamentalists do. I guess after half a millennium they finally absorbed the lesson of that embarrassing Galileo episode. It's a more intelligent strategy but it's also more insidious.

Knowledge OF the world comes FROM the world. To assert otherwise is to be superstitious. Catholicism is superstition.

That's my screed for the day.

Jacoby ridicules the question, but I think it deserves a serious answer from an atheist point of view.

The U.S. is NOT a "Christian nation" in any sense. It is not founded upon religion, as the Constitution makes clear. However, the culture and history of the U.S. and Europe have been profoundly affected by the Christian religion, in some way to good effect, and in other ways not so good. Christian philosophy and the respect for the individual is also at the heart of modern democracy and it made vital contributions to enlightenment philosophy and the development of modern science, as Conant and many others pointed out.

So in a sense, all candidates for office always endorse Christian values. Although Christ was apolitical he probably would not have quarreled much with either party. American society and politics are far closer to his ideas than ancient civilization was. For example, we all agree that poor and helpless people should be cared for, whereas in ancient times they were left to starve. This is a distinctly Christian attitude, and it goes way back. The book "The World We Have Lost" describes society in early 1600s. It describes an event during a famine in France. A family in a French village starved to death. The local people raised holy hell with the Church and the local Baron. They said the church is supposed to prevent this, and that's why they tithed so much of their crops -- to help unfortunate people. I cannot imagine people saying that in Edo Japan or China, where people starved all the time. If the peasants had complained to the local Lord, using the kind of language the French peasants did, they would have been tortured and killed.

We are so imbued with Christian ideals, and they are so widespread and uncontroversial, we hardly notice them, any more than a fish notices water. You have to look at non-Christian societies to see how Christian we are.

Note that I am talking about Christian moral philosophy. The religious aspects of it, such as superstitious beliefs in a virgin giving birth or the power of prayer or what-have-you are less widespread, and they should play no role in civil society. As far as I am concerned they should have been abandoned 400 years ago. Thomas Jefferson and many others have rejected the revelation and superstition but they support the morality. Jefferson did this literally, by cutting out the revelation bits of the bible with with a pair of scissors, leaving only moral philosophy. That seems like a good idea to me.

Right on Gerry. I find it absolutely hilarious that the Vatican has a school for exorcists. But it's true. It is actually true. A school for exorcists!!

I pray the day will come when we will ALL chuckle about the idiocy of religions. Well, I don't pray exactly, knowing there's nobody up there to hear me...but its something I hope for, and want to believe.

Comments from you, EFavorite and Chris, give me hope that this could happen one day. Religion MUST go before we all get blown up, or go crazy.

Religion is for the incurious. In believing that "God did it", the incurious explore no further the great mysteries of existence. How dull and ridiculous are the infantile God notions. And what a pity we allow our children to be indoctrinated to believe that such nonsense is reality.

I can only hope that the future will be more enlightened than the present, and that Gods will eventually be dumped along with Santa and the fairies. Our future depends on it.

Chris Everett -- I enjoy your posts too, and I think you went a bit overboard with this: "Children of religious parents (NOT "religious children," mind you) are discouraged from being curious and inquisitive about the world. They are taught, implicitly or explicitly, that asking questions is inherently dangerous, that common sense and plain facts are forms of deception, that they should abandon reason and love of nature and instead seek comfort in blind acceptance of scriptural assertions."

Luckily, people can compartmentalize, so that faith issues are handled much differently than other types of learning. What you state might accurately describe some fundamentalist thinking, but certainly does not describe some mainline protestant and liberal catholic thinking. I was raised Catholic and had no trouble separating faith from fact, or faith from science. I'm sure my case was not unusual.

Evolution was taught in catholic schools and is supported by the Vatican. Hard to imagine how they twist their minds to do this, but they do!

Pope Benedict wants to train 3000 new exorcists.

Intellectually, we are living around the year 1520.

My satisfaction over the meeting of Christian and Moslem clergy (they have a meeting in Rome) is limited. Two brands of superstition trying to understand each other. I hope they succeed.

The "black cat from the left" faculty befriending the "wagon number 13" faculty. Well, on the practical side, it is better than the two brands of superstition killing each other, for the time being (remember, we live around 1520).

Chris Everett;
I always enjoy the breath of fresh air I get from your comments. When I read you I perk up and realize all is not lost to the unthinking robots.
You are right up there with Dawkins and Harris and Susan in my book. Long may you post.
Hope you enjoyed the Salman Rushdie essay above.
If only the deluded would read and ponder his letter to the six billionth child born into this modern world.
Thanks again...may Apollo be with you.

Susan JAcoby

if a man puts on Oil, may he swim in the Dead Sea easily and as much as he wants?

Thank you, CAM.

You got me with the WW 2 reference, as my father was a paratrooper.

I would say, of course, as Hitler lined up to try and fulfill his hope for Lebensraum, anyone turning their cheek would have had it blown off.
(Many did do this during the course of the war...)

My father would have said that his mind at that time would not have hesitated to kill anyone who risked the lives of his platoon, friend or foe.

But there were many steps that the victorious allies of the first war could have done to prevent the rise of Hitler. The extreme reparations and humiliation suffered by Germany produced radicalism.

But I guess I was answering you on a person-to- person conflict level and not thinking about the complex arena of international politics.

Dear Susan,

"Enough with this silly speculation about what Jesus would have done."

As you know, I often disagree with you on the facts and on your views, but not this time. Jesus would not run in our political system. People wanted him to be a messianic leader of a an uprising in first century Judea. He declined to take this political position, dying on the cross instead and founding one of the World's great religions instead.

I am guessing Jesus would react to our politics much as he did to the money changers as Herod's temple.

Another story about Richard Feynman and his father. The senior Feynman was a uniform salesman. He taught Richard to be very skeptical towards people who put on uniforms - that it was a means of faking authority. So Richard grew up seeing popes, priests and ministers as people in funny hats, robes and collars. Imagine if he had been taken in by these outfits and joined the clergy. What a loss! Can the same be said of any clergy that might have become scientists?

DITLD,

You write "I call this condition 'apathy towards knowledge.' How can we rouse people from their apathy? I am not sure we can."

I'm not sure how much we can rouse people, but religious indoctrination makes a special project out of cultivating apathy towards knowledge, beginning at a very young age. It's called faith. Children of religious parents (NOT "religious children," mind you) are discouraged from being curious and inquisitive about the world. They are taught, implicitly or explicitly, that asking questions is inherently dangerous, that common sense and plain facts are forms of deception, that they should abandon reason and love of nature and instead seek comfort in blind acceptance of scriptural assertions.

Faith is the end of learning. Absolute certainty is powerfully cathartic. The bliss of ignorance.

On the flip side, science is often taught, especially at the public school level, as the set of "answers" about nature, instead of as the PROCESS OF EXPLORING nature and developing explanations that evolve as nature's mysteries continue to be probed.

Richard Feynman once related a seminal incident as a young boy when he asked his father why the ball rolled to the back of the wagon when he pulled on it. His father said it didn't - instead the ball was staying put while Richard pulled the wagon out from under it. He said that the ball, like all things, had a tendency to stay put that we call 'inertia', but nobody knew why.

Chief of Turkish General Staff

Chief of Electronic War Department and Mobile Phone Records

To Jihadist: Interesting article for you...

Vatican, Muslim representatives establish Catholic-Muslim Forum

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Representatives of the Vatican and of the 138 Muslim scholars who wrote to Pope Benedict XVI last October proposing a new dialogue have established the Catholic-Muslim Forum.

The forum will sponsor a seminar in Rome Nov. 4-6 with 24 scholars from each side, according to a statement released at the end of a March 4-5 planning meeting at the Vatican.

Pope Benedict will meet with the seminar participants in November, the statement said.

Accepting the central topic suggested by the 138 in their letter to the pope and other Christian leaders, the seminar planners have said the theme will be "Love of God, Love of Neighbor."

The Nov. 4 session will focus on the theological and spiritual foundations of Christian and Muslim teachings about the obligation to love God and one's neighbor. The second day will focus on "human dignity and mutual respect" and the third day will be a conference open to the public, the statement said.

Aref Ali Nayed, director of the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center in Jordan, told reporters at a press conference that "the atmosphere was quite positive and welcoming" during the planning meeting.

He said there was a discussion about comments by some Catholic leaders, including Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, that it was difficult or impossible to engage in a theological dialogue with Muslims. The 138 scholars have insisted they want to discuss common theological and spiritual principles and not focus on political or social questions.

"I think there was a bit of a misunderstanding which was clarified through the two days of meetings," Nayed said.

The Muslims did not refuse to discuss concrete social or political issues, he said.

"What we meant was that addressing social-political issues should be rooted in the revelation of God and in the theological teachings of our two communities," because believers judge situations based on their faith, he said.

While Nayed said many Muslims still were upset over Pope Benedict's use of a negative quote about Islam during a 2006 speech in Regensburg, Germany, the Common Word initiative -- as the dialogue between the Muslims and Vatican has come to be known -- was designed to help people look forward with hope.

"This whole initiative is about healing; it is about healing the wounds of a very pained and, in many ways, destroyed world," he said.

At the press conference, the Muslim delegates expressed their concern over the Feb. 29 kidnapping of Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, Iraq, and offered their prayers for his release.

"We also take this opportunity to remind our fellow Muslims that it is against the Prophet's (Mohammed) teaching to even touch religious leaders and monks and priests," Nayed said. "Religious leaders and religious symbols must be respected."

Nayed also said he understood that Pope Benedict was concerned about restrictions on religious freedom faced by Christians in some majority Muslim countries, but he hoped the Catholic-Muslim Forum would be a place where leaders from both sides could strengthen their commitment to religious freedom for all people without having the meeting turn into an exchange of "a list of grievances."

Mainly, he said, the Muslim scholars want to promote hope by promoting dialogue with others and unity among mainstream Muslims not represented by the "loud, violent, cruel" minority sometimes painted as representing all of Islam.

The scholars want their leaders to meet the pope and other Christian leaders because "the sight of these leaders with our leaders, standing together in love of God, love of neighbor," would be a sign of hope "that the religious communities can be a help to getting humanity out of the cruelty cycle it is in, rather than being a cause of the cruelty cycle," he said.

In addition to the formation of the Catholic-Muslim Forum, the Common Word initiative has led to plans for major Christian-Muslim meetings in Great Britain and the United States.

At each of the meetings, Nayed said, female Muslim scholars who signed the original letter will participate "not because they are women, but because they are great scholars."

When asked, he said it would have been "presumptuous" for the Muslim delegation to encourage the Vatican to name some female Catholic scholars to its 24-member delegation for the November meeting.

In a written statement to the press, Abdal Hakim Murad Winter, director of Britain's Muslim Academic Trust, said those who believe in God have a responsibility and an opportunity to reach out to each other, to work together and to promote religious values in the world.

Recent research suggests that the main problem people have with religion today is not their doubt about the existence of God, "but rather the widespread sense that religion brings discord rather than healing to the world," Winter wrote.

"The reality of engagement between believers of different traditions is overwhelmingly one of conviviality; but extremists on all sides veil this by using language of exclusion and contempt," he said.

The other Muslim participants in the planning meeting were: Ibrahim Kalin, director of the SETA Foundation in Ankara, Turkey, and a professor at Georgetown University in Washington; Yahya Pallavicini, vice president of the Islamic Religious Community of Italy and an imam in Milan; and Sohail Nakhooda, editor of Islamica Magazine in Jordan.

The Vatican participants were: Cardinal Tauran, the meeting's host; Archbishop Pier Luigi Celata, secretary of the interreligious dialogue council; Msgr. Khaled Akasheh, head of the council's section for relations with Muslims; Comboni Father Miguel Ayuso Guixot, president of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies; and German Jesuit Father Christian W. Troll, a visiting professor of Islam at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University.

END

This is what happens when spiderman2's comments are stripped out. So many foolish comments floating around without a counterbalance. Stupidity abound. Almost all comments stinks and no recycler of garbage would like to accept them.

All flies and no insecticide around. The whole place stinks.

'I wish it wasn't true but facts do not lie' wrote:
"Paganism is no help; it is a conduit to sexual perversion. Hence, their gods see no discord with the iniquity of human sacrifice or temple prostitutes. Under such a regime, truth becomes relative, subjective, and therefore meaningless since your truths may not be those of another."

You mention facts, but you don't seem to have any.

I'm suspect the average Pagan has a healthier sex life than the average Evangelical Christian. What do you think PaganPlace?

IWIWTBFDNL, I think you're a little too concerned about Pagans' sex lives. Perhaps you're jealous? Anyway if they're not hurting you, don't worry about it!

I do agree with you on one point: truth is not subjective. Some people are simply wrong. How can we tell who is right and who is not? Guess what? Reading the Bible won't tell you. You've got to actually look at the real world and ask lots of questions. That's what science does and if finds lots of answers. Real answers, not pretend answers.

Most of the things that make your life pleasant to live today: electicity, cars, TV, mobile phones anti-biotics etc comes from science. Reading the Bible to get "facts" gives us things like the Crusades, witch hunts, and exorcism as a treatment for disease.

If you are interested in facts, here are some:
http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html
The facts seem to indicate that religiosity is correlated with most indicators of social dysfunction.

The more religious a country is, the higher the murder rate, abotion rate, teenage pregnancy rate, STD rate, divorce rate, etc. There are numerous studies that confirm this.

I suspect that not all religions are equal in this respect, but it is certainly true of Christianity.

Regards,
Realist

Mo, Mo, Mo,

Your Islamic, brainwashed neurons need some signficant updating.

With respect to Adam:

As per National Geographic's Genographic project:
https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/

" DNA studies suggest that all humans today descend from a group of African ancestors who about 60,000 years ago began a remarkable journey. Follow the journey from them to you as written in your genes”.

"Adam" is the common male ancestor of every living man. He lived in Africa some 60,000 years ago, which means that all humans lived in Africa at least at that time.

Unlike his Biblical namesake, this Adam was not the only man alive in his era. Rather, he is unique because his descendents are the only ones to survive.

It is important to note that Adam does not literally represent the first human. He is the coalescence point of all the genetic diversity."

Adam as per Catholic theology:

"The story of Adam and Eve is only symbolic.
This story was composed in the 900s BCE and functions as an etiology (explanatory myth) . In the 900s Israel was self ruling, under King David
and Solomon. The people were no longer at war and the question" Why are we not happy?" may have been asked. The short answer is sin. (Look at 1 Kings 11 for some clues into why the story depicts Eve sinning first and then tempting Adam [Solomon])."

'I wish'

stop those silly bible quotations already! You cannot prove Harry Potter's supernatural abilities by quoting Harry Potter.

Paganplace, as an atheist, I fully respect, even understand to some degree your religion, since your point of origin, like mine, is asking, and keep asking, what "is".

It is sad that these discussions have to be led with people of the education level of Mo and his friends who so perfectly represent the gullible religious audience Salman Rushdie refers to in his wonderful description of religious superstition.

Anonymous: The question if Jesus existed or not is of only limited historical interest for me. If his non-existence were documented, people would place (and always have placed) some other anthropomorphous entity into the vacuum of their understanding of nature - maybe that is even exactly what they have done with Jesus in the fourth century, when Christianity was invented.

We are not confronted with nature, we are part of nature! That simple insight would be the start of a universal "religion", a condition to discard the dangerous corrupting heaven and hell and redemption nonsense forced on the stupid masses by power hungry priests of a stone age mind set.

Luther May 6th, 1526 in a sermon:

It is a fully just law that witches have to be killed, because they do a lot of damage, which is sometimes ignored: They can steal milk, butter and everything out of a house; they can cast a spell on a child. They also can create mysterious diseases in the human knee, so that the body is consumed. They create damage to body and soul, they distribute drinks and curses to create hatred, love, bad weather, all turmoil in the house, on the field, over a distance of a mile and more they make people limp with their witch arrows which nobody can heal.

The witches must be killed, because they are thieves, adulterers, robbers, and murderers. They create all sorts of damage. They must be killed not only because of their damage, but also because they have intercourse with Satan.

Religion.

ADAM and JESUS.
adam is the father of mankind ,people can go to the nearst census office and see that world population if traced back 100 years or 200 years or more it goes less and less till it end down to one single soul .

if adam exist then his son jesus or his daughter marry exist .denying jesus is denying adam.

miracles happen evey minute ,why people do not belive in the miracle of jesus who came from virigin chaste womankind but they do belive in the miracle of their own birth!!! did you creat your son or daughter latley???

in order to understand the reality of jesus you must undrestand the reality of adam.

mankind doesnot die biologicaly nor live merely biologicaly,mankind live by the soul that is breathed in him/her and die by the taking of the soul .

jesus is mankind son of mankind son of adam and eve .

in order to understand the soul of mankind you need divine revelation ,mankind can take the live and dead body of his fellow mankind to the nearst morgue and examine him biologicly as he can but puting the soul in mankind or taking the soul of mankind is a whole different miracle any mankind in his/her right mind need to stop and submit.

the hypothetical that jesus will come to the D C and mange and save the world and nail the sin of mankind on the cross, or the biological approach in order to save mankind biologicaly or physiosychosoicologicaly is another
jeudochristianscientificdarwinism delusion.

the book of the creator of heavens and earth is much more realistic much more comperhensive than the book of biology and the man made constitution .

To reply to the last guy:

I don't think people in general are very interested in religion or spiritual matters. Even very religious people who go to church, pray, and read the Bible are not very interested. Going through the motions of a theological script, written by men, and imposed upon man, is not in my opinion, eing "interested" in religion.

But, likewise, I do not think people are very interested in science either. Each new utility of science is merely incorporated into the landscape of our existence by each succeeding generation, with some vague notion that science is behind it, but not knowing how or why.

Oh, people like to drive the cars, travel by air, watch their big screened TV's, cook in their micro-waves, sync their ipods to their computers, and do all this modern twenty-first century stuff. But, science? to most people, it is boring, remote, and dull, and it is just as easy to reject its philosophy as take it, if the theological script dictates it.

So, I do not see the conditions of man, changing much in the near future, with regards to religion.

I call this condition "apathy towards knowledge." How can we rouse people from their apathy? I am not sure we can.

Salman Rushdie wrote the following letter a few years ago in a project with other writers at the time,when each wrote what they thought was important to pass on to a new child...

Dear little Six - Billionth Living Person: As one of the newest members of a notoriously inquisitive species, it probably won't be too long before you start asking the two $64,000 questions with which the other 5,999,999,999 of us have been wrestling for some time.
How did we get here? And, now that we are here, how shall we live?
Oddly - as if six billion of us weren't enough to be going on with - it will almost certainly be suggested to you that the answer to the question of origins requires you to believe in the existence of a further, invisible, innefable Being "somewhere up there", an omnipotent creature whom we poor limited creatures are unable even to perceive, much less to understand.
That is, you will be strongly encouraged to imagine a heaven, with at least one god in residence.
This sky god, it's said, made the universe by churning its matter in a giant pot. Or, he danced. Or, he vomited creation out of himself. Or, he simply called it into being, and lo, it Was. In some of the more interesting creation stories, the singly mighty sky god is subdivided into many lesser forces - junior dieties, avatars, gigantic metamorphic "ancestors" whose adventures create the landscape, or the whimsical, wanton, meddling, cruel pantheons of the great polytheisms, whose wild doings will convince you that the real engine of creation was lust; for infinite power, for too easily broken human bodies, for clouds of glory. But it's only fair to add that there are also stories which offer the message that the primary creative impulse was, and is, love.
Many of these stories will strike you extremely beautiful, and therefore seductive. Unfortunately, however, you will not be required to make a purely literary response to them. Only the stories of dead religions can be appreciated for their beauty. Living religions require much more of you. So you will be told that belief in "your" stories, and adherence to the rituals of worship that have grown up around them, must become a vital part of your life in the crowded world. They will be called the heart of your culture, even of your individual identity.

It is possible that they may at some point come to feel inescapable, not in the way that the truth is inescapable, but in the way that a jail is. They may at some point cease to feel like the texts in which human beings have tried to solve a great mystery, and feel, instead, like the pretexts for other properly anointed human beings to order you around. And it's true that human history is full of the public oppression wrought by the charioteers of the gods.
In the opinion of religious people, however, the private comfort that religion brings more than compensates for the evil done in its name.

As human knowledge has grown, it has also become plain that every religious story ever told about how we got here is quite simply wrong. This, finally, is what all religions have in common. They didn't get it right. There was no celestial churning, no maker's dance, no vomiting of galaxies, no snake or kangaroo ancestors, no Valhalla, no Olympus, no six-day conjuring trick followed by a day of rest. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

But here's something genuinly odd. The wrongness of the sacred tales hasn't lessened the zeal of the devout in the least. If anything, the sheer out-of-step zaniness of religion leads the religious to insist ever more stridently on the importance of blind faith.

As a result of this faith, by the way, lt has proved impossible, in many parts of the world, to prevent the human race's numbers from swelling alarmingly. Blame the overcrowded planet at least partly on the misguidedness of the races spiritual guides. In your own lifetime, you may witness the arrival of the nine billionth world citizen.

(If too many people are being born as a result, in part, of religious strictures against birth control, then too many people are also dying because religious culture, by refusing to face the facts of human sexuality, also refuses to fight against sexually transmitted diseases.)

There are those who say that the great wars of the new century will once again be wars of religion, jihads and crusades, as they were in the Middle Ages. I don't believe them, or not in the way they mean it. Take a look at the Muslim world, or rather the Islamist world, to use the word coined to describe Islam's present day "political arm". The divisions between its great powers (Afghanistan against Iran against Iraq against Saudi Arabia against Syria against Egypt) are what strike you most forcefully. There's very little resembling a common purpose. Even after the non-Islamic NATO fought a war for the Muslim Kosovan Albanians, the Muslim world was slow in coming forward with much needed humanitarian aid.

The real wars of religion are the wars religions unleash against ordinary citizens within their "sphere of influence." They are wars of the godly against the largely defenceless - American fundamentalists against pro-choice doctors, Iranian mullahs against their country's Jewish minority, Hindu fundamentalists in Bombay against that city's increasingly fearful Muslims.

The victors in that war must not be the closed-minded, marching into battle with, as ever, God on their side. To choose unbelief is to choose mind over dogma, to trust in our humanity instead of all these dangerous divinities. So, how did we get here? Don't look for the answer in story books. Imperfect human knowledge may be a bumpy, pot-holed street, but it's the only road to wisdom worth taking. Virgil, who believed that the apiarist Aristaeus could spontaneously generate new bees from the rotting carcess of a cow, was closer to a truth about origins than all the revered old books.

The ancient wisdoms are modern non-senses.

Live in your own time, use what we know and, as you grow up, perhaps the human race will finally grow up with you and put aside childish things. As the song says, "It's easy if you try."

As for mortality, the second great question - how to live? What is right action, and what wrong?- it comes down to your willingness to think for yourself. Only you can decide if you want to be handed down the law by priests, and accept that good and evil are somehow external to ourselves.

To my mind, religion - even at its most sophisticated - essentially infantalizes our ethical selves by setting infallible moral Arbiters and irredeemably immoral Tempters above us; the eternal parents, good and bad, light and dark, of the supernatural realm.

How, then, are we to make ethical choices without a divine rulebook or judge? Is unbelief just the first step on the long slide into the brain death of cultural relativism, according to which many unbearable things - female circumcision, to name just one - can be excused on culturally specific grounds, and the universality of human rights, too can be ignored?
(This last piece of moral unmaking finds supporters in some of the world's most authoritarian regimes, and also, unnervingly, on the editorial page of the Daily Telegraph,UK.)

Well, no, it isn't, but the reasons for saying so aren't clear-cut. Only hard-line ideology is clear-cut. Freedom, which is the word I use for the secular-ethical position, is inevitably fuzzier. Yes, freedom is that space in which contradiction can reign, it is a never-ending debate. It is not in itself the answer to the question of morals, but the conversation about that question. And it is much more than mere relativism, because it is not merely a never-ending talk show, but a place in which choices are made, values defined and defended.

Intellectual freedom, in European history, has mostly meant freedom from the restraints of the Church and not the state.

This is the battle Voltaire was fighting, and it's also what all six billion of us could do for ourselves, the revolution in which each of us could play our small, six-billionth part; once and for all we could refuse to allow priests, and the fictions on whose behalf they claim to speak, to be the policemen of our liberties and behavior. Once and for all we could put the stories back into the books, put the books back on the shelves, and see the world undogmatized and plain.

Imagine there's no heaven, my dear Six-Billionth, and at once the sky's the limit.

Extracted from Letters to the Six-Billionth World Citizen, published in English by Uitgeverij Podium, Amsterdam

comments?

Given Jesus's preference for parables, riddles and evasion, it would seem he would make a better presidential press secretary than president.

Cause I'll tell you this, nothing gets people trotting out Bible verses to claim I have no 'morality' or humanity because of my religion,

...Than a Pagan saying we *have* these things, and what they mean to us.

Those aren't 'facts' you cite, "I Wish."

They are opinions you quoted to defame real people when another reality presented itself.

This is why religion should not rule here in America. Not yours, not mine, not anyone's.

Cause guess what.

You're not a character out of your Bible, either.

Susan, you say, “I think the available evidence suggests that there was a charismatic preacher named Jesus”

I’m happy to see that you seem to have backed off your earlier statement that you think Jesus existed because of the “sheer number of contemporary commentaries” about him.

Still, I’d like you to know your sources – and not just academicians agreeing with each other that a charismatic preacher named Jesus existed in the first century, but the actual “available evidence.”

I’ve heard that Jesus was a common Jewish name in the first century and that there were many itinerant preachers claiming to be a Messiah, but I’m hoping the evidence you cite is more than that.

If you 'wish it wasn't true,' sir... you're about to get your wish.

Guess what.

It's not true.

But... You saying that is an argument for religious based government, *why* again?

If your religious leaders tell you that about real and living people.. Like... *me,* ...what else might they be telling you... That's not true?

If they commanded... What would you do to someone?

Pagans aren't characters out of your Bible. We're real and living Americans. Somehow, we manage to live wholesome and decent lives, despite your defamations and 'false witness.' Go figure.

"Paganism is no help; it is a conduit to sexual perversion. Hence, their gods see no discord with the iniquity of human sacrifice or temple prostitutes. Under such a regime, truth becomes relative, subjective, and therefore meaningless since your truths may not be those of another."
___________________________________________

pa·gan:

1. One who is not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew, especially a worshiper of a polytheistic religion.
2. One who has no religion.
3. A non-Christian.
4. A hedonist.
5. A Neo-Pagan.
adj.
1. Not Christian, Muslim, or Jewish.
2. Professing no religion; heathen.
3. Neo-Pagan.
TheFreeDictionary by Farlex

2 Corinthians 6:14-17, (14)“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? (15) What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? (16) What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people." (17) Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord.” NIV

Robin and his ilk are part of the crimes you describe, Realist. And they have the "moral" audacity to "look down" on enlightened, intelligent and highly educated persons like Susan, using the word "atheist" as an insult. Today, the word "atheist" begins to become a compliment to a person, fortunately.

Well, stupidity sells, as is proved in this terrible "Christian" Nigeria report you listed. The mechanism of "god", who forbade Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge maintains its disastrous validity to this day.

Enlightened atheism is the only chance we have, not the bigotry displayed by so many posters on these threads.

"Children suspected of being witches are being killed today in the name of Christianity. Killing of witches is common today in Nigera for example. The Bible says that a witch should not be allowed to live. Typically it is the young and the old who are relatively defenseless that end up being accused."

Gods know I've heard it enough right here in the US of A... Usually in terms of aggressive people claiming, "I have every right to kill you for being a tree-hugger, in the name of Christianity... But, I'm too good a Christian to actually do it.... Probably. At least till I get a few drinks in me... Aren't you glad you aren't in a Muslim country?"

Yah. :)

I am glad. But by less and less of a margin every year.

I know it's not a long way from someone saying, "By rights I should kill you," and some real medieval stuff coming down.

And if the fanatical converts in Africa who still scapegoat 'bad witches' for anything that might be wrong, but who fervently believe there can be no good ones, ...Stand as a warning that just professing Christianity is not going to solve all problems.

In fact, it can create many.

The aboriginal customs of Southern Africa have a great deal to do with accusing certain people of 'bad magic,' and then *reconciling* them with the community.

Introduce absolutes and devils and Bibles into that, people end up with a burning Michellin around their torsos.

" Robin:

"Well, Ms. Jacoby. The word of God is quite plain.
You should not kill. There's nothing Godly about the issues of abortion and partial birth abortion.
The "one thing" I can honestly say, that George Bush did do for which I am most appreciative - he signed the bill that banned partial birth abortion."

"I won't discuss anything further with you since you're an athiest."

Hardly American, that... saying 'God commands, and since you're not of my religion I don't want to talk about it.'

Frankly, what they call 'Partial birth abortion' is a safer method for later-term abortions that really nobody seems to particularly like, (unless maybe they're very literate about what a malformed fetus with no hope of living can do to a mother if left to kill her naturally) ...all that legislation thing did was force doctors to use riskier methods if such a thing is medically-necessary: but the fact is that the Christian-based 'pro-life positions don't stop there: they want to ban sex ed, classify emergency contraception as 'murder,' and compel pregnancies for non-and-other-believers based on a *particular religious idea* of when 'human life' starts.

People got bored with saying that a long time ago, but it's still true.

My co-religionists do not believe abortion is a *good* thing, but neither do we believe the government should enforce ignorance and compel women to carry every potential pregnancy to term or be called 'murderers' cause someone decided a blastula is a human soul with one chance at 'eternal life.'

It's not an *easy* choice, but who's going to make it? You? George Bush? Me?

How about the people in the situation?

You may, in your churches, teach your own co-religionists that your God will slam-dunk rape victims with a high risk of ecotopic pregnancy in Kansas down a black hole if they don't carry a child to term and give the rapist paternity rights...

You don't get the US government to impose that view and its consequences on everyone else, though.

Patrick,

you do know a joke when you see one, hey?

And: Exorcism is up to date! Comments?

Patrick,
Read some international news! It's a big world out there.

Children suspected of being witches are being killed today in the name of Christianity. Killing of witches is common today in Nigera for example. The Bible says that a witch should not be allowed to live. Typically it is the young and the old who are relatively defenseless that end up being accused.

see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/09/tracymcveigh.theobserver

Patrick, you are fortunate to live in a secular country. I assume you live in the US. The founders of the US were well aware of what happens when religion based on ignorance governs a country. It's a pity most US citizens are ignorant of the history behind the founding of their nation.

Regards,
Realist

Well, Ms. Jacoby. The word of God is quite plain.
You should not kill. There's nothing Godly about the issues of abortion and partial birth abortion.
The "one thing" I can honestly say, that George Bush did do for which I am most appreciative - he signed the bill that banned partial birth abortion.

I won't discuss anything further with you since you're an athiest.

The word of God also says to "go quickly from the presence of a fool" and "A wise man spares his words."
No wonder you only have 36 or comments.

TO FRIEND
Turn the other cheek requires a lot of courage in a person to person confrontation. Many times the best strategy is to run and avoid any confrontation.
But we are talking about a president of a nation and I am refering to country to country or country to terrorist confrontation. I doubt a gesture politically equivalent to turn the other cheek would had convinced Hitler to avoid invading Poland. Tyrants and fanatics delight in people that turn the other cheek. It requires less effort to kill or imprison them.

“What would Jesus do?”

First, I want to make it clear I am not a Christian. That established, I do not think it is charitable to take literally the phrase we hear so often, given above. A person asking this question is searching the contents of their own soul, albeit configured in the Christian way, for guidance to make an important decision. Now, you may say that some who use the phrase do take it literally. Still, it is just a device we can understand they might use, and to be polite we can smile and nod approvingly. However, charitableness must end when anyone justifies their public actions in such a simple-minded way, or expects others to conform to such a parochial standard. We expect responsible adults to be more rational.

Gee Gerry, can you pull out more outdated comments as you have made? Come on man! Burning witches... PLEASE.

Setting aside the stupidity of the question, Jesus would have exorcised me when I was young and suffered from a seizure of epilepsy. He might have sent my "demons" into a herd of pigs or not, but it is doubtful if I would have survived the "divine grace", which Jesus ordered his disciples to perform on a broad basis.

http://www.fotofetch.com/

I don't really know if they are still burning witches, but by all means exorcising is common practice even in some of todays religious circles. They even have a specialist cardinal for these procedures in Rome. Modern times.

Let's bury the myths, bad enough as a historical reminiscence.

S C Cromett:

WWAD? Well, Augustus gave me a good laugh with that one. Fear no ambush!

You are right about Socrates; Plato and Xenophon wrote after his death, and the reference from Aristophanes, from his play 'The Clouds' (IIRC) is contemporary. I'm sure Socrates saw it and had a good laugh. The evidence for the historical Jesus is thinner, to be sure. It has always seemed odd to me, though, that some folks insist that Jesus did not exist because there is no contemporary reference, while ignoring so many other historical figures that have, as you said, none at all.

Arminius

"Whether that presumably historical Jesus bore any resemblance to the Jesus of the Gospel stories is another question altogether--and one that cannot be answered."

The accurate sentence would have been, "Whether that presumably historical Jesus bore any resemblance to the Jesus of the Gospel stories is the answer I do not accept."

"Would Jesus have been in favor of gay marriage?"
If you read you would know Jesus stood on the Law and He would not have been, in any way shape or form, for "gay" marriage. He would, and does through His own on earth, state the unequivocal truth that the act of homosexuality is not a right but a sin, just as the Law states. No amount of historical revisionism changes the truth. The Disciples were not "gay" but somber, sober individuals who gave their very lives for what they believed. They were known to be individuals who were changed and holy, such a sin as homosexuality was never considered among them.
You do them a grave dishonor to be so flippant about them or to suggest they would be so base.

"Would Jesus have been opposed to the war in Iraq?" Jesus was "for" being obedience, protecting the weak and helpless and being a Godly man standing for those who cannot. Jesus advocated the same and he is. There is no "memory" to keep as He was resurrected to sit in authority at His Father's right hand.

Ken

"It is likely that the Jesus (for whose existence and teaching the historical documentation is much greater than Socrates)"

Actually, Socrates is referred to by at least three contemporaries, Plato, the historian Xenophon, and the playwright Aristophanes. Both Plato and Xenophon were his students, and Aristophanes was a critic of his teachings. All the near contemporary documentation for Jesus outside the Gospels is disputed where Socrates’ contemporaries’ are undoubtedly historical. Which is not to say I doubt that Jesus was an actual person, as there are many people known to history with far less evidence whose existence is unquestioned. Of course, the fact that he probably existed has no bearing on the fact his divinity or the accuracy of the Gospels.

Of course after reading Susan’s essay, I’ve been moved to channel my “inner Augustus” in the future. WWAD shall be my watchword, though I suspect Arminius will be tempted to ambush me now!

Seriously though, I’m always both amused and appalled the whole concept of making the assumption that one can put oneself in the place of some long gone historical figure, no matter how well known, and then act accordingly. I’ve noticed that Jesus always would want to do what that person thinks is the right thing to do, even though two different people come up with different answers. WWJD strikes me as a way, consciously or unconsciously, to justify a course of action already chosen. Any attempt to do so is self-delusion or historical fiction. I suspect candidates who claim do so are either cynically making noises to placate religious extremists or are as ignorant of history as most Americans these days.

Based on what He did during His lifetime, I imagine that Jesus would be part of a radical not-nonviolent fringe group. He'd be with ELF, burning down McMansions and overturning tables in bank lobbies.

If He had Buddhist tendencies, He'd also be with ALF, freeing confined animals and blowing up slaughterhouses [our "Eternal Treblinka"].

When I was a little kid in Sunday School, Jesus was often described to us as an "illiterate carpenter," I suppose, to emphasize the humbleness of his life. Among standard, orthodox, traditional Christians, this is commonly accepted, I suppose, because he did not, himself, write anything.

So, why, all of a sudden, is this such a big controvrsy?

Spiderman2 aka Bible Thumper, Fortune Teller and Severly Brainwashed in that Old Time Religion,

Fools are those who have read only the bible. God cannot be proud of such lazy creations!!!!

To reiterate:
What flash of light gave you such brilliance in the field of fortune telling and interpretations of said stupidity???

Ken, Ken, Ken,

There is only one place in the NT that suggests Jesus could read i.e. Luke 4:16. This passage is not attested to in any other NT passage or in any other related document making it a later addition or poor translation as per most NT scholars' analyses.

See also Professor Crossan and Professor Reed's book, Excavating Jesus, p. 30.

See also Professor Bruce Chilton's commentary in his book, Rabbi Jesus, An Intimate Biography, pp 99-101- An excerpt:

"What Luke misses is that Jesus stood in the synagogue as an illiterate mamzer in his claim to be the Lord's anointed".

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus for an analysis of Jesus' life to include his illiteracy.

It is very unfortunate that Jesus was illiterate for it resulted in many gospels and epistles being written years after his death by non-witnesses. This resulted in significant differences in said gospels and epistles and with many embellishments to raise Jesus to the level of a deity to compete with the Roman gods and emperors. See Raymond Brown's 878 page book, An Introduction to the New Testament, (Luke 4:16 note on p. 237) for an exhaustive review of the true writers of the gospels and epistles.

And where did OT, NT, and Koranic scribes get their embellishing ideas? From the Hittites, Babylonians, Buddhists, Greeks, Macedonians and the Romans!!!!

"Stories circulated to the effect that Alexander of Macedonia was not only the son of Philip II, but also of the god Zeus-Ammon (Plutarch, Parallel Lives, "Alexander" 2.1-3.2); Plato was the son of Ariston and the god Apollo (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 3.1-2), and Augustus was the son of Octavius as well as the god Apollo (Suetonius, Lives o f the Caesars 2.4.1-7). The extraordinary character of these elites reputedly stemmed from both their divine origins and their kingroups. Their kin-groups provided one form of legitimation-political right to the throne and/or social status (thus the importance of Joseph in Matthew's genealogy). Their divine procreation provided another: their honor was divinely ascribed, and their greatness as leaders derived from divine paternity."

From: K.C. Hanson and D. E. Oakman, Palestine in the Time of Jesus, Fortress Press, 1998. p.55

For (:

Jesus said, "love your neighbor." I don't think he said anything about knifing your fellow Christians in the back.

Susan, get a grip. This was a question asked in the, might I remind you, "OnFAITH" section. That means that not every question has to do with politics. If you hate talking about Jesus so much, then why are you here??? You need to get over your egotistical narcissism and remind yourself that Jesus Christ is the most popular being to ever roam the earth. He has been, is, and always will be talked about, and if you can't grasp that, then don't post here. Why is it that so many atheist get so pissed off whenever Jesus or God is mentioned. People here just need to take a chill pill.

DITLD: "I do not think Jesus could be elected President of the United States because I do not think Americans are ready for a Jewish President."

But were ready to elect a Muslim???

Susan is discarding my post. She only wants to listen to idiotic comments. Poor woman

"My opponent, Jesus of the maybe spirit state of heaven is illiterate..."

No evidence in favor of this assumption and much to the contrary. Jewish males were educated in Torah and Luke 4 depicts Jesus reading from the scroll of Isaiah. It is likely that the Jesus (for whose existence and teaching the historical documentation is much greater than Socrates)

"Still: it remains important to be open-minded"
"There is no God!" doesn't strike me as open-minded.

"It is pretty clear, though, that most of the gospels are fictional. Most of the details of Jesus life are copied from the popular mythology of the time."

Except none of the popular mythology of that time or any other asserts that the events occurred in a verifiable historical setting and none were published close enough to that specified time that witnesses to the events were avaialble to dispute the accuracy of the reports.

Our form of government is enjoined from establishing religion. Government may not decide doctrine or modes of worship. The moral ethos arising from religion and the customs of a people nourished by that religion may be expressed in public policy without crossing any rational church/state boundaries. The attempt to prevent a public policy that is based on Christian principles for church/state reasons misunderstands and imperils the freedoms recognized and protected by our Constitution and betrays a confused and bigoted mind. It is entirely appropriate for public figures to advocate how their understanding of Christ influences their positions on policy issues.

That question of whether Jesus would run as a Republican or a Democrat would be known by whoever party sits in the White House after WW3. By that time, all idiots of the world would have been extinguised including those in America.

Whoever stands in the White House after the war, that I presume would be the true party of Jesus Christ.

But the prophecies tell that it's mostly democratic states which would be burned. With all the democratics states burned down, that leaves the Republican Party to rule the earth.

Jacques Berlinerblau and Susan Jacoby are democrats. Would you think God would spare these two idiots and their kind? Without much knowledge of the Bible, anybody on his right mind knows it's the Republican Party God favors.

I do not think Jesus could be elected President of the United States because I do not think Americans are ready for a Jewish President.

And also, if he came back now as he was before, then he also could not be President since he would be a foreigner.

And if he wanted to get a job as a carpenter, he would be asked, "where are your papers? you must have papers." And the "Minute-Men" would say, "if can't speak good English, then you jis' git out!"

So, this question is a non-starter, don't you think?

Cam Said:
"a guy that talk of giving the other cheek to the one that punch you? What a sissy."

In my life, I have found the opposite to be true. It is more difficult to turn the other cheek and forgive someone in the American culture
than it is to fight them either mentally or physically.

I always enjoyed the part in 'The Last Temptation of Christ' where Jesus and his followers are walking to the temple, and his followers are yelling, "King of the Jews" and wanting a violent rebellion against the Romans. He is confronted by Roman soldiers and it
appears that a rebellion is going to start. Jesus prays to God for direction and his wrists begin to bleed.

Animals fight, gods are sacrificed.

I think he will be regarded as an eccentric hippie without any qualification to become president of the United States or any other country.
Really, you would like to elect a guy that talk of giving the other cheek to the one that punch you? What a sissy.
Very nice to fill rosy histories,but totally useless to combat terrorist fanatics, greedy capitalist or dumb communists.

Jesus was a radical who not only challenged the ruling order but challenged the underlying ethos. You will not find someone like this with the ruling elite in any age.

Nice bit of puerile nonsense Nic. Not that I am all that impressed with the agnostics position since I doubt that the difference in hell between the position occupied by agnostics and that occupied by atheists is significantly different at all, but that which can neither be falsified or verified can only logically be addressed through an agnostic approach.

Holy Moses! Never in my life did I feel religion
has a part to play in our country's political processes. Keep it out and enjoy it's feeling in the church of choice.

Thanks Nic,
Some common sense here.

Jihadist wrote:
(a) Jesus existed?
That is heretical by the atheist belief in their "facts" on Jesus.

Athesism is not a religion. We don't all have to believe the same things. We are allowed to think for ourselves. Atheism is just non-belief in God. We don't pray to Darwin or read a chapter from "God is NOT Great" 5 times every day.

Unlike the religious, we don't just make up whatever facts we feel like and pretend that we were told them by God. We try to base our facts on reality, not on nonsense written by ignorant people thousands of years ago.

I agree with Susan that there probably was a historical Jesus. There are a few independent references to him. The evidence for Jesus as a real person is pretty thin, but there is some evidence. It is pretty clear, though, that most of the gospels are fictional. Most of the details of Jesus life are copied from the popular mythology of the time.

Regards,
Realist

Nic Brady;

Loved the Grayling piece. Must check out his books.

Thanks...

Apparently Jesus was gay, and no gay would ever be allowed to run for such high office.
So forgedaboudit.

The historic Jesus would have a very hard time running for any political office since any opponent would simply note the following about about him:

"My opponent, Jesus of the maybe spirit state of heaven is illiterate with only a basic background in peasantry and carpentry. He apparently suffers from "visions" and hallucinations of devils aka the demons of the demented. Some have characterized him as the "holy roller" from Nazareth, PA to a mythical character from Nazareth, Wherever, to a mamzer from Nazareth, PA. Analyses of Jesus’ background by many contemporary political scholars have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' commentaries are authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles made-up by his political speech writers to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.

The 30% that is "authentic Jesus" was plagiarized and/or borrowed from speeches of other politicians.

His supporters like followers of Luther, Calvin, Joe Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley et al also suffer 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).

Mortifus;

Actually Mortifus it's Jeez with a J.

Nothing else of interest,so try this...

It has been well said that one should not be so open minded that one's brains fall out. This is a good admonition to those who, for example, pusillanimously declare themselves agnostics when the only rational alternative to belief in the existence of supernatural beings can be atheism.

This is because the basis of belief in the existence of and gods and goddesses is no different from that for belief in pixies, namely legend and credulity; and the grounds for entertaining the thought that something might exist (footprints, fur snagged on fences, grunting in the night, actually seeing the creature in question bounding up a hillside) require much better and more consistent supports than the pre-scientific fictions invented by our ancestors to explain what they did not understand.

People forget how strong the belief in the Little People was until quite recently - they were a feature of things well into Victorian times and even later. They were blamed for much, such as missing pins and curdled milk, the lights seen on the marshes,and various aches and twinges suffered by old ladies. As reason diffused its happy light over the Western hemisphere, courtesy of the growth of literacy in those same times, belief in pixies and their ilk faded.

But superstition has strong talons; a lady of Cork, literate and generally sensible, was once asked whether she believed in leprechauns, and replied, "I do not, but they are there anyway," thus beautifully capturing the spirit of agnosticism in all its faint-hearted fence-sitting tendentiousness; for it is premised on the fact that since no one has proved that X does not exist, X might exist, as if this in any way followed, and as if responsible and disciplined intellectual endeavor does not show the fallacy of thinking that, for example, the fact that no one has proved the non-existence of Tolkein's Hobbits means that they therefore might exist in some Middle Earth after all.

Still: it remains important to be open-minded, though with a readiness to subject what is offered for our intellectual assent to stringent evaluation by the light of probability and experience. These two latter are indispensable servants of thought. They explain the difference between the assiduity with which some seek the Loch Ness Monster, while no such expense of cameras and microphones, boats and planes, bearded researchers and photojournalists has ever clustered around the possibility that a woodland grove might be the scene of moonlit pixie parties. For the idea of large marine beasts has a plausibility endowed by whales and manatees, while the idea of antique such beasts has its plausibility from sharks and coelacanths, both of them survivors from hideous depths of zoological time.

Oddly, it is the credulous who are the least open-minded. They accept dogma, and dogma closes - even indeed punishes - enquiry thereafter.
Voltaire says that he honors the man who seeks truth, but despises the man who claims to have found it.
The saying touches the essence of the difference exceedingly well, and should be the motto of anyone who aspires to intellectual honesty.

A.C.Grayling. The Heart of Things. page 124.

" Any candidates, liberal or conservative, who have managed to convince themselves that their policies would have been endorsed by Jesus are unfit for any public office."

Very well put.

Oh, man... I just had this horrible vision of Hillary wearing Xena's costume when I read Jihadist's post.

I need a drink.

Geez CCNL, why don't you two get a room already?

It is miraculous. For the second time in less than a month Ms. Jacoby we are in agreement.

We anxiously await for the historical Jesus experts like Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen to give their input.

And to the "Reality Challenged" and Obfuscating Jihadist: if indeed someone like Jesus ever ran for political office, he or she would first cover the flaws in all religions. In case you forgot the first four flaws in Islam, here they are one more time:

1. Belief in "pretty/ugly wingie thingies,

2. Belief that an hallucinating, illiterate Arab did actually talk to the "pretty Gabriel" in the hot "Gabe" cave and therein received the warmongering and anti-female words and resultant laws now listed in the koran.

3. That Sunnis are superior to Shiites in all aspects of life. And Shiites think the same way about Sunnis.

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

Hello JJ:)

I see that you are actively and unrelentingly campaigning for Hilary Clinton.

Why only one and a half breast design of your Hilary Clinton campaign posts here in On Faith? Implying she's an Amazon?

Legend has it that Amazons cut off one of their breasts so they may shot their arrows better and straighter.

Has Hilary Clinton, the Woman Warrior, done something about one of her breasts that we don't know about and you do?

Hello Daniel in the Lion's Den:)

Boring or dumb question?

Question : "If the historical Jesus were running for president, what kind of candidate would he be? Republican or Democrat? For or against the death penalty, the Iraq war, abortion, etc.?

- He won't be member of any political party or current religious groups, wearing Armanis and Guccis, hiring speechwriters, media consultants, campaign managers, engaging in photo ops etc. He's too much of a rebel and anti-extablishement figure (religious and political) for that. He may put forth new thinking on the human condition, politics and religion.

Jacoby : "I am interested in what Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain would do as president of the United States."

What we can guess, if any one of them become President of the US of A, is:

- Clinton would not be making inspiring and soaring speeches, and still be wearing those dowdy suits and still be stuck with Bill.

- Obama would find the real world more challenging than as ideas, as in speeches, and on paper as campaign position and stumping platform.

- MaCain may wonder if he is really a Democrat after all but not doubt he was a POW.

Jacoby : "I think the available evidence suggests that there was a charismatic preacher named Jesus--a human being, not the son of God--in the first century in Judea."

Uhhhh....a single sentence that may irate both atheists and believers?

(a) Jesus existed?
That is heretical by the atheist belief in their "facts" on Jesus.

(b) Jesus is not son of God?
That is blasphemous by the Christian belief on God.

So, in light of some possibility that some atheists may nuclearised Ms. Jacoby for (a), and some believers may pray to God to bring on the Ten Plagues to plague Ms. Jacoby, perhaps we should assist Ms. Jacoby in securing temporary asylum in Switzerland as a refugee from the double wrath of some believers and atheists.

Ummmm....what? I'm typing! Oh, we Muslims believe Jesus existed but Jesus is not Son of God? Oh my! Hello? Hello? The United Nations High Commissioner Office for Refugees? Yes, thank you. Before I go further, can I pick out my preference of country for asylum? Sweden is too cold, Australia's fine. What? Hello? Hello? HELLOOOO?????

Thanks and regards

"J"

Did the quality of writing on On Faith just take turn for the worse, or is it me? Seriously, after days of intelligent disection of the Pew study, y'all are now writing about Jesus' political affiliation. Shamefully dull.

Did the quality of writing on On Faith just take turn for the worse, or is it me? Seriously, after days of intelligent disection of the Pew study, y'all are now writing about Jesus' political affiliation. Shamefully dull.

Yes, Susan, what a dumb question. I really am disappointed.