Faith in the light of science

nothiong fail nations like human scientification.

they disbelieve in the virigin who delivered a baby and disbelive in the flying horse or the talking ant or the talking bone or the resurection ,but they have full faith in the scientific monkey theory of the holy mankind darwin?????

this scientific ground universe that we all share tell us that the creator who created this universe can creat a baby from a virgin,if he can creat a horse why not make it fly or even talk?
do not you have a talking barby????

if you canot see the brightness of the sun blame your sceintific blindness,deafness,delusional dumbness.

nothing fail nations like delusional scientification.

scientific hypocrisey.

Secular

I am with those who argued for seperation of "church and state" in national affairs. For all religions to be treated on an equal footing by the state. There be no special treatment, special preference for any specific faith groups. That would be just. That would be fair.

Atheists argue for the right of people who don't believe in religions and deity/deities. No argument on that. No one wants to be, to live as hypocrites. Nor should anyone be tarred and feathered, criminalised, or killed for changing beliefs. And obviously, not to tolerate any individual or groups, regardless of belief or non-belief, who commit crimes under the law. This is the blinding flash of the obvious.

Atheists can continue to argue why God/s and religions are myths, irrational and dangerous. Believers can continue to argue otherwise. Let it be so in this marketplace of ideas and see which "sells" on its own merits.

I still think it irrational and unrealistic for some atheists to argue that religion is the primary cause of all conflicts, the impediments of mordenisation, the root cause of all bigotry and prejudices, that all believers are guided by religion 24/7 for all their daily life etc.

I can't help noticing some posts by some atheist in On Faith are, deliberately or otherwise, couched in absolutely certainties and generalisations on religion, god/s and believers in the same way some believers post absolute certainties and generalisations regarding atheists and believers not of their faith group.

There is no doubt organised religion, if one differentiates them from personal faith and belief in God/s, play a significant role in various communities. Atheists don't quite look into the whys organised religion, as faith based groups, as NGOs continue to have significance, to play a role for the individual and community.

Where organised religion, or religion organised as faith based community clubs, i.e. houses of worship, service providers, NGO pressure groups, and political parties are strong, to ask why they are so. The historical, demographic, political, economic and social reasons are interesting, illuminating and different for all groups and countries.

In spite of all the atheist contention for empirical evidence and facts, some of them do seem sloppy in research to verify their claims religion and religionists are such and such.

Secular

can you prove to me that the world is round? Do you know the math? do you have the empirical data. Perhaps you can prove to me that E-mc2. Or perhaps you have the evidence of natural selection?

Are you now saying that saliva does not contain DNA? Or perhaps you don't believe in test tube babies. Or perhaps machines that fly are impossible until someone invents the airplane.

The existence of other animals is not in itself the branch point of evolutionary selection. The competition for ecological resources is. How do memes compete for cognitive space - guns. That is not a meme. That is a gun. Argument? that is not a meme that is logic or other criteria. Your other posts point out that meme is just an analogy. It has no meaning in itself. It is a mythology of the way the world works, It is a belief system of the nature of reality. It is an element of religious - type ideology. If you can point to it with evidence, you can call it a fact. Otherwise it is just another belief system.

Likewise, you may find Nehru a great moral person. How do you define moral? by what Nehru did that agrees with your belief system of memes?

Science require evidence, modern science require statistical evidence. If you don't have statistical evidence of the morality of secularists as exceeding the morality of theists (and different theist groups) then your claim of secular morality is just another unfounded, superstitious belief system. I believe you have the right to that. If the evidence is that the majority of ethical leaders are theists, than any scientific person would say there is at least a connection, perhaps not causality, but clearly a connection.

Truth claims. Unless you have a PhD in everything in the world, you will make truth claims that you can not substantiate. Just the nature of knowledge. At some point you will have to infer and deduce what you believe as to the nature of the world. At some point you will make a leap of faith that you are probably right.

You are correct to suggest we need to separate superstition from reality. This is what the Upanishads have taught for millenia. If all you see is what is proved to you personally, that is awesome. Go for it. In 100,000 years you may have enough evidence to understand humanity. This is why the rishis said meditation etc are so important. We can bewilder ourselves on the minutia of religious practice, and for some people that is as far as their cognitive capacity goes, or we can follow that narrow path that connects us with the divine within and without in existential ecstasy. So the rishis developed nyaya rules of logic and understanding that founded substantial empirical work on ayurveda (that people are validating with modern methods), politics, sociology, art, sexuality, psyhcology, etc. You may want to ignore their contribution as you want to prove everything yourself (or you only want to believe the hegemon of western ideas). That is fine. But as an open minded scientist I want to listen to those that went before me and ask the questions that come from that to move our society forward (whatever that may be, my faith gives me optimism). A blanket rejection is nonsensical, unscientific, and simply another form of mono-ideological belief systems.

hariaum

Navin1 you wrote, "The empirical data shows that the most moral persons in the world (Gandhi forward if you want to restrict yourself to modern more definite history) were theists of some sort".

But until now the Secularists were in the closet in most places. So one really does if some of the more ethical persons weren't actually atheists. I could also claim Nehru was also a just person and every bit as ethical as Gandhi and he was most awovedly a card carrying atheist.

Even if your contention is true, it still does not add any weight to the truth claims of your religion, I presume is Hinduism. Can you really prove to anyone's satisfaction that Hanuman's semen was consumed by a fish, which in turn gave birth to a fully grown MAN. This man was capable of becoming a king all in amtter of few days? Anyway isn't Hanuman achanchala Brhamacharya? Then how do you explain him excreting semen?

Navin1, you wrote "what is the selection pressure on memes? what is it to say meme's evolve? do memes physically exist? Are meme's are the same in that they are created by men and so equally false"?

Of course the selection pressures are the other memes. Do you not think the Zeusism vanished under the selective pressure from Christianity? After all two predators were competing for the same quarters, the human mind Christianity won, by hook or by crook - that is irrelevant.

Memes are yes man made,that does not make then false or right. Not everything that is man made is false. The religious memes are false not because they are man made but because they are make truth claims that are non-substantiable. Yet there may be memes that are neither right nor false, as they do not make any truth claims, such as a melody or just a dumb tradition - such the Texas Aggies 12th man on the football field. I hope this helps

Jihadist you wrote:
"But apart from religions' differences, too many athests in On Faith also wrote many factually incorrect things on non-religious matters, including economics, politics, history, the environment current affairs etc.

The world may be rid or religions and belief in God/s as athiests hoped and have a crusade for. But it does not mean that as atheists, humans will be smarter, more informed, more logical, more reasonable, more rational".

Am I being too optimistic to surmise that you see our (secularists point) and that you concede the merits of our propositions and arguments?

It is never our contention that when we abandon the gods and the supernatural that world will be the nirvana. When women got the right to vote did not mean that the world problems are solved. Nor that when the voting rights act was passed, its milk and honey for african-americans, far from it. But they were the right things to have happened. Our contention is the same in this regard as well.

We are what we are, these things do not make us smarter or more compassionate or anything. It just is a good thing that we do not live lives guided by superstition. My philosophical outlook is that there will be lots of people who may not be as smart as me who are more successful than me in many measures. Likewise, I am also likely more successful that lots of people far more intelligent than me and hardworking too. All said and not one can beat just dumb luck. I try not to envy others and hope others do not envy me.

what is the selection pressure on memes? what is it to say meme's evolve? do memes physically exist? Are meme's are the same in that they are created by men and so equally false?

This is word play.

How does a scientist or an evolutionary biologist define a better ethic? It a circular statement and void of logic.

Slavery has not ended. The slavery of premodern America was far greater a cruelty than the slavery of Greece and Egypt. Women have not been liberated. Men still think they are free to think when marketing professionals control what they buy. Genocide has become more efficient thanks to modern scientific reasoning. When atheists acquired great power (not just as leaders but also as the followers of those leaders) they have committed some of the greatest oppressive genocides history has ever known.

The empirical data shows that the most moral persons in the world (Gandhi forward if you want to restrict yourself to modern more definite history) were theists of some sort. The empirical data shows that the most genocidal societies in the world fall into christian, islamic, and communist regimes with the probability of being genocidal being much smaller after you leave these groups for other theist traditions.

To be scientific is certainly different than to have an ideology of secularism. I prefer scientific.

hariaum

Jihadist, you may be technically correct insofar as these stories may not be part of the book of fables called Koran. There are plenty of such superstition recorded in Koran, for instance the story of Dhul-Qarneyn. My contention that all religions, including Islam are joined at the hip to some really ridiculous superstitions and unnatural phenomenon. That is the end of the story, Q E D.

Posted by: Secular

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I already know what you think of all religions and God.

But apart from religions' differences, too many athests in On Faith also wrote many factually incorrect things on non-religious matters, including economics, politics, history, the environment current affairs etc.

The world may be rid or religions and belief in God/s as athiests hoped and have a crusade for. But it does not mean that as atheists, humans will be smarter, more informed, more logical, more reasonable, more rational.

Surely it won't kills atheists to have college mates who is a believer outscores them in quantum physics or biotechnology, and still go to church every Sunday to pray to God, have more more successful carreers and make more money than them.

Deal with it. Live with it. Or get over it. That's the reality.

Navin1, Morality is just another meme like all the religions. The early memes of morality and ethic were very in-group kind. But over the years these memes have evolved slowly to be come more broad based and less narrow. I have shown in my early posts how narrow the do not lie commandment has started out and how broad it has become today. Even the religious when we point out the narrow mindedness of some of the scriptural admonishments are jump up and down and make excuses that the situation and the norms were different back then. Which is a really damning testimony for any claims that god is the source of ethics and morality. If the ethics really were source by your god they don't need to change over time. Yet we all agree that the ethical norms have evolved only for the better, be it be acceptance of slavery or untouchability, etc, etc, etc.

So the fallacy of morality in the long term for evolution is that evolution does not have a long term. Natural selection has to do with reproductive success. One person may feel that they should not covet their neighbors wife. But that person's genes are not propagated with the frequency of those of the person who feels perfectly fine coveting and doing other things to is neighbor's wife. Thou shalt not kill gets in the way of genetic competition. The hypothesis that evolution uses ethics to create cohesive groups is the very hypothesis that we should not be having group think.

No. Evolution, as a decision point of the survival of the most prolific reproducer, supports the use of force and theft to be more successful in reproduction. Scientific, cold, an-ethical, reasoning says take your hive, decimate the other hive, and you will go on to reproduce and the other hive won't. So the most efficient killing is when the other is not human and we can use the full extent of scientific reasoning to eradicate the lesser races. And how do we define the lesser races, empirical data, scientific reasoning of course.

You need a non-scientific ideology to say all humans deserve the right to live unhampered by the powerful groups of prolific reproducers.

Science, empirical science, not the hokey teleological projections that someone puts on evolutionary explanations of the day, demands evidence. Evidence demands definitions and hypothesis to establish how to obtain evidence. A scale is preferable. And morality should certainly have a sense of scale of rightness and wrongness. But modern science, based on statistical evidence, can at best be descriptive of probabilities of correlations between behavior and "objective facts." It can not define that Gandhi is good and Hitler is bad.

hariaum

Jihadist, you may be technically correct insofar as these stories may not be part of the book of fables called Koran. There are plenty of such superstition recorded in Koran, for instance the story of Dhul-Qarneyn. My contention that all religions, including Islam are joined at the hip to some really ridiculous superstitions and unnatural phenomenon. That is the end of the story, Q E D.

Didn't MO ride "Burak" the amazing flying Horse to meet the BIG guy in the sky.

- Secular

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Ooops. Missed that fyling horse. It was a dream the Prophet had.

Nahhh...the Prophet never got to meet the Big Guy, only Moses.

And a very lovely Dome on the Rock constructed in Jerusalem to commenmorate that.

Secular,

There are many hadiths, several bios on the Prophet. Most compiled or written several decades after his death. There were at least 400,000 hadiths compiled and weeded down as sahih by classical Muslim ulama to some 4,O00 - 4,400 depending on whom regard them as such.

As for the various bios on the Prophet, the physical description of him varies as much as painted potraits of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. The only thing consistent is that the Prophet is well build.

The Prophet do not perform miracles, nor are miracles ascribe to him taken seriously by Muslims. It would be a story most Muslims would consider as not sahih and as shirk.

The "talking bones" is the kind of stuff non-Muslims love as much as the "72 virgins" in heaven? I leave it to you to have a notion of Islam of the same level held by Muslim fanatics and extremists.

Navin1 you wrote, "In scientific reasoning, not any that I know of (can you point to a scientific - empirical treatise on right and wrong), there is no good or bad but what an individual wants it to be at the moment. That would include the psychopath. Without a method to discriminate, science must fall silent on the rightness of faith. It can answer as to the evidence of apparent material effects but not on the "rightness" of faith".

As best I see science does not get into the right or wrong issues. It is concerned with the objective truths. The right and wrong are our creation. These are however spurred by the evolutionary history. Certain neuro-genetic constructs within our brains (that have evolved) enable us to contemplate about our own survival and the environment around us. It is the zeitgeist, that Dawkins talks about. Just as in the past various species were bestowed with different defensive, aggressive physical & behavior patterns by evolution, we humans are bestowed with the faculty to think in a long term, beyond the survival of the organism for today. The use of word bestowed is perhaps a bit loose. What I mean is that it is an happenstance shaped by the evolution and the surrounding physical world. This long term analytical faculty that was bestowed on us engenders us to start thinking in terms of the right and wrong, in some yet not fully understood manner, to shape our behavior for a long term survival of us as a species, along with the other species in some synergistic manner. Insofar as that goes our sense of morality, ethics are evolving past the narrow propagation of our own tribe to whole humanity.

Continued below

To further elaborate on my thesis, take the Judaic commandment on lying. The commandment itself reads "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour". It is early evolution of ethics. From the 21st century ethical context this commandment is extremely flawed. Here are the flaws that I can fathom, as enumerated below:

1) It only speaks of truth telling from standpoint of giving a testimony in some sort of legal or adjudicating situation only.

2) It does not talk of general situations where truth statements are made. Such as when you broke your sister barbie doll.

3) It is, to put it in the best light, silent about false testimony, in favor of your neighbor.

4) It does not admonish against false testimony against a stranger.

5) At the minimum it has 3 words too many. It could just have been "Thou shalt not bear false witness"

From evolutionary perspective the commandment sort of propagates the tribal gene pool in a much more general way than being restricted to one organism propagating its genes. However, in 21st century the admonishment is "Do not lie" which is more compatible with the propagation of the entire human gene pool, than tribal gene pool. So my thesis is that our ethics are continually evolving due to evolutionary forces to promote our and our surrounding species to survive and adapting to the changing environment.

In short the so called god given morals are one of the earliest stages of the moral & ethical evolution, to sustain us into the future, which in of itself is engendered by Darwin's biological evolution. All scripture is replete with examples of this in-group morality, which in 21st century moral compass is totally abhorrent. Even the most religious do interpret these early morals in the 21st century context. That is the reason We secular rationalist do not find anything ethical in the scripture because the scripture is replete with in-group morality, which for a good extent has been left in the dust heap of history, that's where the scripture should be left too.

Flying horse and talking bones in Islam? Didn't MO ride "Burak" the amazing flying Horse to meet the BIG guy in the sky. I wonder how did the horse continue to fly past the stratosphere. Must that where aero-dynamics ceases Horse-O-dynamics starts. That's it, that's it. What is this Jihadist, we infidel kafirs seem to be knowing all these goody miracle, and not the devout Muslim like you. Somebody seems to have been sleeping the Madrassah, when all this was taught. Tsk, Tsk

Jihadhist you claimed "Never heard of talking bones except in Hollywood movies such as "Pirates of the Caribbean"". Come on now you never heard of talking bones in Islam? After eating the lamb with quite a relish, that was prepared by the Jewess and then seeing that one of his followers had fallen dead, doesn't MO start to question the Jewess. Doesn't he tell everyone that bones told him that the meat was poisoned? I always wondered, why didn't the damn bones speak up until they were cleaned dry of the meat over them. To which an imaginary Muslim friend always countered that it is because they could not speak while the meat was still over them. To that I have always countered, how did the bones know about the poison when they were covered with meat? I guess they have X-ray vision but hadn't mastered telepathy, which of course MO was quite good at receiving telepathic messages.

Come on now Jihadist, even an infidel Kafir (is that redundant infidel Kafir?)has heard about it. You certainly heard about it didn't you? Or did they not teach you that part of MO's biography, where after poisoning, he continually pray and blows his breathe upon himself, because he had one of those telepathic revelations a while earlier that breathe after namaz can cure any illness. Man-O-man you have to read up more Jihadist.

Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" and Alexander Dumas's "Count of Monte Cristo"?

Secularists don't love nor understand nor care for literature except for the sci-fi genre?

Flying horse and talking bones in Islam?

Must be the borak in the dream of the Prophet PBUH. Never heard of talking bones except in Hollywood movies such as "Pirates of the Caribbean".

At the core all religions have one thing in common. A belief in a whole slew of unnatural phenomenon. Each slew may differ from religion to religion, in some cases even overlap. Discussing these religions and trying to make sense of them is just as fruitful and as stupid as to comparing and contrasting Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" against Alexander Dumas's "Count of Monte Cristo".

When discussing the religions, I cannot get past these superstitious beliefs in the organizing documents (scriptures). Be it be the virgin birth and resurrection of Christians, Parting of the Waters and the Joshua being swallowed by a fish of Judaism, The flying horse or talking bones of Islam, or the many a superstitious beliefs of Hinduism, Jainism, & Buddhism from monster heads swallowing the moon & the Sun to the sweat (or the semen) of an ape swallowed by fish giving rise to a fully grown man. Any memes (all religions are indeed memes) that are based on all these silly theses deserve no respect and have really nothing to teach the 21st century humanity. I sincerely wish and hope that they are all relegated to the dust heap as the humanity as done with Alchemistry, Thorism, Zeusism and thousands of such other memes.

I'm with JONESM2. All religions are the same in that they are false. As for teaching love, peace and tolerance, what a pity that so many followers of so many different religions find it impossible to practise these teachings.

This is really over my head. I am bowing out. The Dali Llama is really deep but it seems that secularist opinion just trumps all the religious rhetoric that I read in the comments.

"Of course, there are progressive religions that focus on love, tolerance, and compassion for humans. Such religions are close to humanism, which focuses on being good without god."

So long as a religion agrees with humanist values that defines them as good. Interesting self affirmation in one's own beliefs. Do humanists have the right way to see the world? Even to the point of pointing out that the way other's see the world is wrong. Hmm, some humanists seem to have created a new mono-ideological religion.

And, by the way, sometimes being good may well be to kill someone else. ie to protect one's own child, to protect someone else's child, to protect the environment, to stop Nazis...

love peace tolerance and all that is the easy moral question. The hard moral questions require depth of understanding. Is utilitarianism sufficient to say killing 6 million jews is an acceptable means of improving Germany's clout in the world? How about 100 million native americans to demonstrate the power of democracy? Or tens of million orthodox christians to demonstrate the utility of communist revolts in the soviet?...

In scientific reasoning, not any that I know of (can you point to a scientific - empirical treatise on right and wrong), there is no good or bad but what an individual wants it to be at the moment. That would include the psychopath. Without a method to discriminate, science must fall silent on the rightness of faith. It can answer as to the evidence of apparent material effects but not on the "rightness" of faith.

hariaum

Certainly there are many good people, religious or not. But I'm more inclined to the views of Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Steven Weinberg: "With or without religion, good people will do good things and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things--that takes religion."

- Herb Silverman

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Nahhh....

I live in Asia. Pol Pot and Mao really think they are good people doing good things for their people. Or, bad people doing good things. Or bad people doing bad things. Never mind.

No religionist nut in Asia has come up to Mao and Pol Pot's level as "good people doing bad things" to their own people.

I agree with Stephen Prothero that religions are not all the same. If they were, there would be no need for them to be fighting with each other, as they constantly do. On the other hand, there is one area in which they are the same, namely, I maintain that ALL organized religions are nothing other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind and monopolize power and profit. Consequently, I believe that no organization(s) should be formed to lead or coerce people along any particular path, religious or otherwise. History has shown that all such organizations are, to a greater or lesser degree, inherently intolerant, oppressive, and corrupt. Furthermore, I believe that organized religion acts as a mental parasite, an opiate that lulls the mind into a false sense of security and complacency and prevents people from facing life with honesty, courage, and integrity. Of organized religions, I believe that Christianity, in all its forms, is by far the most repugnant, though Islam is a close second. To me, Christianity is false, evil, and harmful — a communicable disease of the mind.

I came to the following conclusions many years ago, after I finished seminary and left mainstream Christianity and gave up on "religious ventures," that:
1. Not all religions can be true;
2. All religions may, in fact, be false;
3. There is absolutely no way by which to choose among the many (ancient and current) religions in order to determine which of them has any genuine, true insight into the nature of ultimate reality or the ultimate destiny of the human being after this life - IF there is, in fact, any individual, conscious existence after this physical life;
4. Religious believers are confined to affirming their doctrines and to accepting their specific religious writings on the basis of "Faith," and there seems to be absolutely no means by which to choose among any of them in order to establish one above the other in order to exalt that one above the others as the "True" one.
5. The Greeks believed in their gods; the Druids in theirs; the Hindus in their millions of gods; Jews and Christians believed in their legends and history. But it is perfectly clear that one cannot be both an Orthodox Jew AND a "born-again Christian" at the same time;
6. The history of religions and the theological doctrines of the various religions provide very interesting insights into the nature of the believers of each religion.
7. As a philoopher, I strongly accept the claim that "Believing something does not make it true." Not only Socrates, but many philosophers and scientists of both the ancient and the modern era acknowledge that a claim or belief must be confirmed with empirical testing before it can be admitted into the canon of "accepted beliefs" about this world.
8. If a religious claim has nothing else to offer other than a "faith commitment," then that claim must be held in abeyance until there IS, in fact, some way by which it can be confirmed.
9. The fact of the matter seems clearly to be that "religious claims" provide no extra-religious means by which to confirm them.
10. Given all of the above, it still may be true that some religions do share some beliefs in common. However, for me, it is clear that "the different religions" do NOT offer different paths to the SAME god.
10. To make a claim like the latter would be comparable to saying that because Plato and Epicurus were philosophers who had views about how one ought to live and about the nature of the afterlife that they BOTH shared the same beliefs about the human condition. Anyone who knows the specifics of these two philosophers would know that nothing could be further from the truth.

The United States is dominated generally by Christians and so I tend to discuss and argue religion generally with Christians of varying perspectives. However, on occasion I have found myself in discussions, conversations, arguments, and debates with Jews and Muslims as well. This week’s “On Faith” topic gives me the perfect opportunity to examine a surprising realization: Are all religions the same?

I have a great deal of respect for the Dalai Lama and for historian Karen Armstrong. It is understandable for these them to want to believe that all religions are essentially the same and for everyone in the world to abandon all conflicts and work together in peace and harmony for the good of all humankind. That sounds nice, but it obviously isn’t true.

You can read the rest of my response to this topic:
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-8928-Philadelphia-Atheism-Examiner~y2010m7d7-On-Faith-Are-all-religions-the-same

I will be responding to every issue posted in the 'On Faith' section. If you would like to be notified when my new response is up, please subscribe.

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Not only is it false to say all religions are the same, but even within a given faith there is disagreement about dogma, morals, and more. Claims that religion is homogeneous tend to emphasize traits perceived as the "good" values (tolerance, compassion, justice) of faith; rarely do we hear the "many paths, one God" argument associated with religion's darker side.

If the only thing all the religions did was to preach messages of love, tolerance and compassion, who could object to this? Since they all also come with much dogma about (a) a creator, (b) the need for salvation, and (c) a life after death, then here is where they are at odds with one another. Since all the dogma is a fantasy, a product of men's minds, what can any sect say that will convince the others of their correctness--none of which is afected by a science which to them is immatrial?

Dr. Silverman's commentary provides a valuable and concise summary of the difference between the faith based and evidence based world view.

Whereas throughout history the former has too often brought to mankind hate, ignorance, and suffering, the latter, by contrast, has brought to mankind not only enlightenment but also all the improvements in the quality of our lives that the scientific method has provided.

The Dalai Lama is probably correct about all religions being the same in one regard - they are all most likely false. As far as teaching compassion and tolerance, I have to agree with Professor Silverman that the data shows otherwise.

Science is knowledge derived from evidence.
Faith is what one is willing to believe without evidence.

And prejudice can be defined the same way.

Our culture prefers to associate "faith" with good things to believe without them having to be proved (like the dignity of every human being) and "prejudice" to bad things one believes without proof (the superiority of one sex).

Most people who advocate faith above everything else (you must not lose faith; be steadfast in your faith when it's most trying; faith can move mountains) are sensible enough not have enough faith that schoolgirls should be driven back into burning buildings because their hair was exposed, or that gays should be hunted down and killed.

If your faith gives you dominion over another, you better check his faith, too.

[i] WE Appear [Born'th] in MIRACLE, NOt SiN, NOt Curse!" Hence LiFE, via PHOTON's (NOt Biblio 'light' Stories) Is A Miracle!

Mr. GAUTAMA & even Mr. VYASA r' rolling over in their Places (graves). Sounds like The (un)Holyi Dali Lama & His Monks Army of Pseudo-Psychologist Buddhism via All 3 Yanas/Flavor, hath been Plagiarizing or Borrowing Our "Holyi Cosmic Feelers Faith" belief/religion Philosophy. aka "New Song Coming from Old". Shhame On The LAMA. Note: In His Recent TOUR it is said that He & Co., racked Up some 50+ Million Dollars. So

They (Monk Armys of Scholars) must have gotten their hands on ONFAITH's entire Spools, thus sneakily incorporating OUR "Post"s therefrom, w/out sighting Source or give credit, since ONFAiTH started Dec. 2006 and includes stealing from OUR 2 Major Books [1) HOLY MIZAN, aka SUPREME PARATESTAMENT OF THE NEW SONG & 2) The BOOK OF TRANS{FiNITY".)

Note: DEEPAK CHOPRA, the Hol(istic Hindu, Also should be Shhamed for Plagiarism or copying other peoples work & translating them, as if be ORiGINAL?!

Heres another REVEALation of a Buddhist [Dali Lama & Co.] "Freudian Slip": One Needs to look at SAM HARRIS's Brain/Mind Scan Analogy. Where suddenly, in desperateness, The Dali Lama's Army was now incorporating & talking Brain Scan to correlate their (not OUR) Pre-Apocalyptic imagined Buddhism. Please see:

http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/what-your-brain-looks-like-on-faith/ AND

http://www.physorg.com/news102179695.html

"Using a scanner that reveals which parts of the brain are active at any given moment, the researchers found that meditation increased activity in the brain regions used for paying attention and making decisions."

to be continued....

The Dalai Lama is sugar-coating reality. Maybe all major religions have some similarities and are analogous in many ways, but to say they are "different paths to the same God" is a distortion on multiple levels.