Dog Bites Man Story: Evangelicals Want More Religion in the Public Square

Mr Mark, if you insist that you're not faking it, then it means you're a genuine IDIOT. It means you can't see any intelligence around you. You are not FAKE but GENUINE. A 24 CARAT GENUINE IDIOT.

If that is the case, you are a rare creature. But I still stand by my belief. You're just a BIG LIAR.

Spidey brays:

"I believe all atheists believe in God. They are just faking it."

Ha! Laughing AT you yet again, Spidey!

Spidey, you are truly an ass.

How about these vromides to go with yours?:

"I believe all Xians are Muslims. They're just faking it."

"I believe all people are stamp collectors. The ones who say they're not are just faking it."

"I believe all Americans are Democrats. The one's who say they're not are just faking it."

"I believe all males are homosexuals. The one who say they're not are just faking it."

Your statement about atheists is on par with the above statements. The fact that you don't see that confirms your absolute ass-dom-ism.

You are truly a waste of time, Spidey.

Oh, did I mention: You're STUPID!

My father used to say that it's hard to awake a person who's not truly sleeping but just faking it.

I believe all atheists believe in God. They are just faking it. The Intelligence that abound around us are innumerable. "Mother Nature", "Natural Selection", "Evolution", etc. Everything that they mention cannot exist without an Intelligent Hand.

Years were spent by smart people just to mimic the "act of walking" by a person and yet it's not perfected yet. Yes, even a simple motion like the act of walking constitute a great deal of intelligence to happen.

Upto now, the "act of tasting" cannot be artificially recreated. Everything we do, even the simple act of scratching our head consume a great deal of COMPUTING POWER and years of trial and error just to replicate it artificially.

Everything around us are created with intelligence. I can name millions of them.

You give a computer to mentally deranged person and he would not appreciate the wonders that machine is capable of. That's because he's a fool. The same is true with atheists. They act like DERANGED people. They can't see the intelligence around them and what constitute them.

There is an Intelligent Hand and once we're allowed to see the Owner of that Hand in person, we would either love Him or fear Him. ABSOLUTE FEAR will envelop those who had challenged that Hand.

"At the stroke of midnight" as Yeats has described, we'll all be allowed to perceive who's that Intelligent Hand. Seek and ye shall find. Don't let other people seek it for you. Find it yourself.

My father used to say that it's hard to awake a person who's not truly sleeping but just faking it.

I believe all atheists believe in God. They are just faking it. The Intelligence that abound around us are innumerable. "Mother Nature", "Natural Selection", "Evolution", etc. Everything that they mention cannot exist without an Intelligent Hand.

Years were spent by smart people just to mimic the "act of walking" by a person and yet it's not perfected yet. Yes, even a simple motion like the act of walking constitute a great deal of intelligence to happen.

Upto now, the "act of tasting" cannot be artificially recreated. Everything we do, even the simple act of scratching our head consume a great deal of COMPUTING POWER and years of trial and error just to replicate it artificially.

Everything around us are created with intelligence. I can name millions of them.

You give a computer to mentally deranged person and he would not appreciate the wonders that machine is capable of. That's because he's a fool. The same is true with atheists. They act like DERANGED people. They can't see the intelligence around them and what constitute them.

There is an Intelligent Hand and once we're allowed to see the Owner of that Hand in person, we would either love Him or fear Him. ABSOLUTE FEAR will envelop those who had challenged that Hand.

"At the stroke of midnight" as Yeats has described, we'll all be allowed to perceive who's that Intelligent Hand. Seek and ye shall find. Don't let other people seek it for you. Find it yourself.

No human being can offer you proof that God is real, only God can do that and if you would open your heart up to that possibility, He just might.

I have no idea how He would do it, since we are all individuals, how He would do it in your life is up to Him and your openess.

By the way, God is a lot nicer than some of the people that call themselves "Christians" seem to think that He is.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Baum wrote "As Jesus said, "to the Father", He did not say, "to God", "

You're confused because you treat your "Father" and the true God as different. No man can serve two Masters. It seems you have two.

"I am the way" means one way. If you don't understand that, then TAKE CARE & BE READY yourself for the biggest surprise together with your pope and priests who claims they can absolve sins. Absove sin? What? Only the devil other than God can claim that. Im sure they are not God. It means they belong to the other side. Simple. SURPRISE, SUPRISE, you are worshipping with the flock of satan.

Mr Mark - I was in Laguna Beach thurs night, Culver city sat and sunday (big wedding in palisades with oysters), now in Stanton.

Nice weather you're having.

Dear E Fav -

Howdy, neighbor!

I live in Laguna Niguel and work in Newport Beach. How about you?

Dear Hamlet -

I'm willing to listen to any argument that offers "proof" of a deity, as long as that argument contains actual proof. I've already heard all of the arguments that offer opinion, conjecture, fantasy, fear, leaps of faith, distortion of historic fact and outright lies for the existence of a deity (at least, I think I've heard them all, Maybe you have a new one?).

So, go ahead. Offer "proof." But before you do so, please save me some time and look up the dictionary definition of the word "proof" before offering such arguments. If the argument doesn't offer REAL proof, don't bother submitting the same.

SPIDERMAN2

Actually, it is more like God found me. I was looking for forgiveness and God the Father came into my heart. Just like Jesus said, "I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except thru Me".

As Jesus said, "to the Father", He did not say, "to God", since God is a Trinity and in what He said there, He did not say anything about how many ways there could be to Jesus, did He?

Sometimes people like to put God in a box of their own construction, it doesn't work. God is God and how God wants to work out His Plan for the Salvation of the Entire Human Race and All of Creation is up to Him, not you, not me, not any of us mere humans even tho we are called and/or chosen to be active participants in His Plan, it is His Plan not ours.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Anonymous Trucker,

Agreed, we're all in this together. And the grim reaper is waiting. At age 65, I don't have too long to wait. As is well known here, I tend to get p.o.'d more than I should. Lighten up is good advice. Please accept my apology too.

Arminius

DILTD,

Re: Your recent comments

Yes, I can see that you are, in a sense, arguing with yourself. Thought interests you. I think you would enjoy philosophy.

I don't know where we left off with Kant, but I recall your mentioning apriori knowledge (innate knowledge). Kant belonged to a philosophical school known as idealism. He believed that we are born with innate knowledge, that we have it before we engage experience. He tried to use mathematics to prove this. I won't go too much further, except to say, after decades of demonostrating that there is no apriori synthetic knowledge (knowledge sans experience), Chomsky entered with a theory he claimed was "frankly mentalistic," positing a language aquisition device, an innate human ability to learn language, the existence of which has been demonstrated again and again and again.

AT any rate, the jargon may make it all seem arcane. Kant is not difficult. I suspect he would be easy for you. There are any number of introductions that you can read alongside the original. Especially, with your background in mathematics, interest in poetry, you might enjoy this.

Everything you write has a philosohical tenor to it.

As for poetry, I plead guilty to having followed Farnaz with a limerick challange to Arminius that led us to our various muses.

For the future, I'm thinking sonnets....not difficult to write at all.

Hamlet

Mr. Mark,

I have no disagreement with debate. However, occasionally, as you know, the tenor of these discussions is not that characteristic of substantive dialogue and challenge.

Are you ready and willing to listen respectfully to others "proving" to you the existence of the deity? The "fulfillment" of the OT in the NT? Are they willing to listen respectfully to you?

Are do we seem to be engaged in parodying one another?

What, precisely, is the objective? This is an honest question, not meant rhetorically.

Hamlet

Perspective,

Re: Chaos theory

If you are familiar with Mandelbrot, fractals, etc., you might want to look into Chaos theory.
From what you write, I gather you have a strong grounding in mathematics. There is also a good introduction for the nonmathematically inclined, but that is akin to reading about language rather than doing linguistics. Still, it is interesting, if necessarily, a little misleading.

Many mathematicians have a mystical bent as you know. I think you would enjoy Chaos Theory.

Hamlet

Trucker,

NOw that we have established that Arminius is a man, may I suggest that you seek medical attention to remove the chip cum boulder/from your uptight shoulder?

If transparent Spanish is "snobbery" to you, what, then, is your display of Latin? I'm soooo impressed.

And what's up with this, "O, I'm only a poor trucker...."

And? So? Point? Your occupation is relevant because?

You know, Trucker, sometimes, things do get a bit heated here, but few of us seek to start the fire.
A little hurts no one. Neither does a Guinness. Chill.

And btw:

Qui habet aures audiendi audiat.

Peace.

Hello Mr Mark -- I'm just a few miles from you, I suspect, in Orange County, CA, also watching the late returns from Oregon, unfortunately, without the company of Bach.

Andrew -

I'll part company with you on the minimalists, including John Adams. I find it to be a lot of notes without music. I head for the exit doors when the minimalists get started.

I listen to Bach quite often myself. I went thru a heavy Bach period in college, and I own a complete recorded edition of his works (180 CDs). But he's not the be-all-and-end-all for me. No composer is.

It's late now and I'm going to watch the final results from Oregon.
See ya'll tomorrow.

Good post, Andrew, but there's an easier way to look at it:

We live on a planet that is still cooling. That fact accounts for many of the terrible mega-disasters that happen on this planet. Some use the term, "the angry Earth," but in fact, the planet is indifferent to this chaos because it's not a thinking entity.

Truth be told, there is only ONE species on the planet that thinks about any of this, and that is man. Because we are "aware," we hold the conceit that the terrible things that happen around the world are not only aimed at us, but they are aimed with intent, and malevolent intent at that.

But the planet isn't intending or aiming at anyone or anything. It's just doing what a cooling planet does. The planet doesn't know and doesn't care the 99.99% of the species that have lived on its surface have gone extinct. It doesn't know or care which species will go extinct next. It no more intends a tsunami to wipe out 100,000 humans as it intends a tsunami to wipe out a population of wild boars. Yet, our human perception allows us to imagine that we are the intended victims of these disasters, when we are only victims to our own way of viewing the world and our existence.

On our best days, we take our ability to reason and use it to best avoid the natural disasters we know will occur with regularity on our cooling planet. Perhaps we decide not to build in an earthquake zone, or, perhaps we build in an earthquake zone but we actually enforce the stringent building codes of that zone.

On our worst days, we imagine that there's some supernatural "message" in the disaster, that we're being taught a lesson...or that god is presenting us with an opportunity to show how we respond as "his people," mindlessly embracing beliefs that create a situation where disaster is heaped upon disaster.

The earth doesn't care and god isn't there. That's as simple as it is, wouldn't you agree?

Mr Mark.

Thanks for your response re Pelleas. Great. I'm glad to hear you 'dig' that one. Yeah I can't play it too often. I really must be in that mood, with time on my hands, and nobody around. I can get kinda stoned on that one.
I also like John Adams music, he did the opera Nixon in China. I haven't seen the opera, but I have much of the music and it's wonderful. 'The Chairman is Dancing" is a what...a post minimalist jazz influenced percussion happy romp that makes it impossible to sit still. It just vibrates. Some of this newer classical is managing to stay very interesting and vital.
But Bach is where I always return to at the end of the day. And as it's now the end of the day I'll bid you adieu and do just that.

If there was a God we would know about it.

And if we knew about it there wouldn't be any atheists.

There are atheists because nothing suggests that gods ever existed except a lot of old stories in ancient books of myths and legends.

The least likely place to find the truth about anything - the bible isn't even supposed to be about the truth anyway, but people seem to want to think it is.

If there is a God He behaves just as if he isn't there. He does nothing. Chaos reigns regardless; the endless cycles of tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes, cyclones, floods and famines take hundreds of thousands of lives every year.

Absolute horror is experienced annually by millions of poor, especially children. Most of these people are religious, they prayed, they lived and loved and had children, and then they get swept away or crushed to death or starved to death because of the terrible climate and lack of food.

What is the use of praying to a God that allows this too happen? Isn't praying a waste of time?

What good could it possibly do? Should I pray to God to help me get that promotion at work,when I know He doesn't even listen to the prayers of the poor and needy in third world countries? Or the earthquake victims? Or those washed out to sea? Or anybody anywhere ever?

On top of the total lack of evidence of a God is this obvious confirmation - He NEVER DOES ANYTHING.

You don't need a PHD in nuclear physics or quantum mechanics to conclude - that He never does anything because He isn't there. He isn't anywhere. A twelve year old could see that. Well, some twelve year olds could.

And still the Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist cannot bring herself to comment on the "feems" of Islam. And still the "Severely Orthodoxed" Mary Cunningham cannot bring herself to comment on the "feems" of Christianity.

The Fool in his heart
says there is no God.
The Fools name
was Albert Einstein.

Daniel ITLD - regardint your feelings on Einstein:

Ditto - said it better than I ever could

Since we are on the subject of Albert Einsein, or at least we were, he has something in common with Michael Jackson, and the Beatles, and a few other famous people.

He had all of his success, fame, and recognition at a very early age, and then for all the rest of his life, he had to live up to his youthful success, and he had sort of hard time, I think, but of course, he did ok.

His theory of relativity came to him in a sudden insight, so I have heard. Then, he worked all around backwards-like to show that his insight was right. He spent most of the rest of his life at odds with most of the advances in quantum physics and modern physics.

So, he was a very clever guy, indeed, but he was still a man, from whom the greatest mysteries of life were hidden, the same as all the rest of us. So, it might be nice, but not really necessary, to prove that he might have been on ones side of any argument. But that would all be beside the point.

Spiderman2 - well, that was a response of sorts. Here's my take - you think you know what you know, but clearly very few folks here are terribly sympathetic to what you think you know......and so you have your beliefs, so what??

You are presenting your beliefs as though they were the revelations of an old testament prophet....from God's lips to your ear - are you off your rocker?? This is a distinct possibility from where I sit.

Work on spelling, sentence structure, clarity of presentation and conceptualization, and above all, word use. You have to get your ideas across, without all this huffing and puffing...it really makes you sound like someone on the verge of pulminary collapse and hovering at the threshold of death - a gasping last will and testament presentation, for want of a better description. These are not the guys at work that you're talking to here......

And who knows whether you're an engineer, a porter or a pullman conductor?? You're driving a train with only one passenger, near as I can tell.

And this is not Mr. Wizard's science train, I'm pretty sure of that.

So give everyone a break and get off your high horse - you present as a guy that skipped out on his week-end pass. Just take a time out ......

Wayne writes:

"You know it and I know it that the question we are discussing on this thread is maybe the biggest question of them all. And that question is - is there a God?

You got a bigger question? I don't think so."

Well, that's perhaps the "biggest" question facing our species in 2008 as we are still mired in believing that the childish fantasies of our past are somehow reality based. But as humans have been around for at least 100,000 years, it's safe to say that many questions loomed much larger for, say, oh, about the first 95,000 years of our existence. Questions like, "am I going to eat today?"

Some day in the not-too-distant future, the question "is there a god?" will be seen to be just as trite and charmingly stupid as some of the other "big" questions of our ignorant past, questions like, "how does one keep away the witches and werewolves?," "why does god make people sick?," and "what happens when the stars fall to the ground?"

Seen from this perspective, it's clear that mankind's flirtation with god(s) will eventually end up as little else but an infatuation of our early teen years as a species. Our infatuation with the "big" question of god will be neatly book-ended by our species' fear-laden beginnings and our truth-embracing future, and will move on to "big" questions of much greater import than the question, "is there a god?"

Too bad I won't be around to see THAT glorious day, for it's clear that fear still rules many people's lives on this planet, and fear is the very lifeblood of belief in the supernatural. Fear/god has plenty of steam left in it's boilers, even as the stupidity of the engine of religion becomes less and less attractive to the educated and humane among us.

Pelleas et Mélisande is one of my favs. I don't listen to it as often as, say, I do to Verdi's Ballo, but P&M - like Boris Godunov - is one of those operas that I listen to only when I can listen to it without fear of interruption or distraction. Unlike some of the Wagner fare, it's not an opera I'd pop in the car player to listen to on a long drive.

I'm also a fan of Massenet's ouevre. His operas always work in the theater, even if they seem spotty on paper. He was a real master of the theater.

BTW - I don't listen to opera all that often these days. I tend to play symphonies and orchestral music. At the office, it's chamber music and piano. I tend t prefer opera in the house where every performance is unique. it's rather like a sporting event.

I probably give the impression that I'm an opera buff, and I am, but certainly not to the exclusion of other musical genres.

Hello Wayne,

Yes, the fundamental question is - is there a God?
What we are doing here is discussing that in all ways and every way on how and why.

The second question is - what are the good, the bad and the ugly about organised/instutuonalised religion (those with houses of worship, clergy, headquarters issuing directives, or new interpretations, or assertions of old ones, and the roles they play in the public square and within communities).

You do know Christian evangelicals are very active in developing countries. They are "exporting" the beliefs you want purged from the earth. There is a big market for beliefs in the wider world and religion shopping too depending on what a religious entity can offer to the individual and community.

This is not nonsense, this is not myth, this is a political, economic and sociological fact. Reality if you like, on organised/institutionalised religion.

By the way, I should hope billions in the developing countries would know of and heard of Einstein and what he wrote as well as you.

Illiteracy is still high in many places. People who are literate are mostly schooled in their native language. Translations of works are very slow, very little or very spotty in most developing countries.

Fiction (novels) are big sellers, not scientific and philosophical works. Business books, how to get rich books, self-improvement books are also big sellers.

**************************************************

Hello Daniel,

Frankly, I have plenty of time to read at airports and on planes and would absorb anything my hands can get on if I don't have any decent book to read. I even read Popular Mechanics, Horse and Hound if there is nothing else to read.

Einstein is most thought provoking re his his pronouncements on science. Among other things, he said scientific theories are not generalisations from experience, but free creations of the mind leading to leading to deductions that have to survive experiments. Hope I recall that correctly.

**************************************************

Hello Perspective,

Nothing "mystifying" or "savanting" actually. I have to remember info and stats in my line of work and do on the spot mental calculations too when on the floor. Yes, it's this mundane an explanation.

I do tend to remember things I like, things that made an impression and seem to stick like a tattoo in my mind. Of course, I may not recall them completely to the last word.

I have always been interested in the universe since young by the way. Very fascinating to read about blueshift, redshift, wormhole, black hole quark, planetesimal, the Singularity etc

Besides, I only write what I can remember here. :)

Got to go.

Cheers

"J"

Mark Twain says;

"During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after doing its duty in but a lazy and indolent way for eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumbscrews, and firebrands, and set about its Holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood.

Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. Who discovered that there was no such thing as a witch - the priest? the parson? No. These never discover anything. At Salem the parson clung pathetically to his witch text after the laity had abandoned it in remorse and tears for the crimes and cruelties it has persuaded them to do. The parson wanted more blood , more shame, more brutalities, it was the unconsecrated laity that stayed his hand.
There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell-fire is gone, but the text remains; infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books but the texts that authorised them remain."

Mark Twain, "Bible Teaching and Religious Practice" as quoted in "The Portable Atheist" page 121. pub.by DaCapo Press

Arminius

Why should I want a piece of you? You think I'm some kinda Shylock who wants a piece of you?
What would I do with a piece of you? No thank you. I want no part of you.

Hey. Lighten up. We're all headed for certain death in the not too distant future. Lets enjoy the bit we got left before the nothingness that lies ahead finally takes us. We're all in this together.

Ok. I apologize for before..

Perspective,

If man can tinker with gravity, he will be able to mold the earth into a SQUARE OR MAKE IT APPEAR IN THE FORM OF YOUR HEAD OR FACE.

If you cannot understand that,that is because you are not an engineer or a true scientist. Just learn to accept that your brain lacks something instead of defining me to your liking.

Reading comprehention, Perspective. Learn more about it than poems.

C ya later guys.

Jihadist.

you say;

"No wonder about atheists being happy that Einstein saw through "all this religious nonsense" when he was twelve years old as a sort of silly "point scoring..."

wow stop right there. No. Not silly point scoring.
You know it and I know it that the question we are discussing on this thread is maybe the biggest question of them all. And that question is - is there a God?

You got a bigger question? I don't think so.
We atheists are saying, there is almost certainly no god, so maybe it's time to ditch religion before religion destroys the planet.

We are saying there is no reason to believe in a god, so why are we still believing such nonsense.

If it is nonsense, based on myth and nothing more,then religion is a fraud, and its got to go.

If there was a god, that would be totally different. But WISE men are saying that there is no god, and the complete lack of evidence supports this,and history teaches us that we, as a species, have in the past invented gods by the thousand.
None of them real.
Respectfully, Wayne

Jihadist

You suprise me with the broad extent of your knowledge.

You are right about Albert Einstein. He was a very intelliglent man, as we all know. But there are many intelligent people. We all want to hear the opinions of very intelligent people. But, to me at least, religion is specualtive in nature, and Einstein's beliefs are no more or less credible than any one else's. I mean to say, that, although it may be interesting to know what Einstein may have thought about relgion and about the existence of God, his ideas are merely as speculative as anyone else's.

Jihadist, it is my understanding that it was Albert Einstein's life passion to reduce all the known laws of physics to a universal constant: "epsilon." Gee, that would sure make high school physics easier to pass.

Jihadist - do you have eidetic memory or are you a master of mnemonics? You seem to have a remarkable ability to recall facts and recapitulate them in quite perfect English! I wonder if you're actually posting from Omaha....

BTW, it was a serious question, as I find savants, quasi-savants, and pseudo-savants of all kinds pretty fascinating..... best to you.

"What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and JESUS ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the enquiring and constructive mind. What these blessed men have given us we must guard and try to keep alive with all our strength if humanity is not to lose its dignity, the security of its existence, and its joy in living. "

What's so hard about this statement that athesits don't understand? Are they IDIOTS? A BIG YES!!!

Jihadist,

Another classic, thank you. I warned the poor fellow. The tragedy for him is that what you say will sail clear over his head, he has not the proper number of neurons to string together to comprehend your lovely message.

Arminius

Spiderman

We know you're always right about everything, and we are all stupid.

So?

What's left to argue about?

If you can think of anything, just let me know.

Mr. Mark wrote "Priceless stuff, this Einstein quote. I'm still predicting that in due time, Spidey will assert in all seriousness that "Einstein was an idiot." Let's see how I do as a prophet. :)"

It seems like you're even a failure in your new profession. All these talk about Einstein being an unbeliever only sprouted when he died so he cannot defend himself.

All my quotes were written when he was still alive. Got the difference? Concertrate to music. You are a lousy prophet.

Mr Mark;

As an opera enthusiast, where are you with Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande?

I'm not a big opera fan myself, but find Debussy's one and only - pure enchantment. It changes my whole environment whenever I play it. I get lured into this dreamy landscape where people talk in song, you might say, and everything floats along on the music as colors change and voices blend in with the colors, and nothing stands out, no arias. But pure enchantment to my ears.

What's a real opera buff's take on this Frenchman?

Oh, Hello Wayne,

Almost miss your post to me.

I believe many are already pointing out religions and believers are irrational, archaic and a detriment to humanity’s long-term survival.

I believe believers are already called mad,’ ‘psychotic’ or ‘delusional.’ I am typing in a funny farm using my nose and tongue as they put me in a straightjacket. I'm identified as threat to civilisation as we know it.

Do they really serve crackers and burgundy in church? That's classy and cool! No I understand where the crackers and wine parties originated from.

Well, yes, I know. We "mad" believers gave our disease even to cows, not just other humans. Remember that mad cow disease? That is why we have the expression, "Holy Cow".

No wonder about atheists being happy that Einstein saw through "all this religious nonsense" when he was twelve years old as a sort of silly "point scoring" as they do when it came out that Mother Teresa expressed her doubts. If you do read Einstein writings and what he is quoted to have said as an adult, he was not quite black and white and more nuanced in talking about God as a metaphor with regard to what started it all in the universe, and to recognise the limits of human mind and knowledge at this stage.

Mr. Einstein is not the one and only fellow I've read on. I'm more interested in his scientific work than his philosophical works. Of the philosophers in the last century, I prefer philosophers like Bertrand Russell, Hannah Arendt, Ludwig Wittgenstein over Einstein.

By the way, what did Einstein said about science? That the grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms. If I remember that correctly.

People are still searching for unified field theory that incorporates general relativity. No one said, even when accepting quantum theory as fundamental, that it does not has inherent indeterminacy. You know, the uncertainty principle.

Is Einstein being talked of almost like a neo-Zeus by some here? Surely you don't have to invoke Einstein and to treat and quote him as reverentially as one would for Buddha? Or, do you? Reverence for a fellow human? Is that not a first step in how "gods" and "goddesses" came into being and into myths as Zeus, Hator, Isis, Kuang Yi etc. The god of heaven, the god of agriculture, the god of games, the god of learning, the god of wine. So, Gallo is the neo-god of wine? Hubble is the neo-god of the skies? Something like that?

Cheers

Spiderman2 - which application of gravitation theory do you prefer? Newton, Einstein, or Plank?? I'll bet quantum gravity and string theory gives you headaches.....you make On Faith more fun than it would be otherwise, by the way.

Your composition is vastly improved .... but try not to get so worked up.

best to you -

stack o lee: wrote "What went wong? That's easy. Education!"

It's a shame that you saw it that way. Evolution is not education. It's the science of fools. When ART enters science, stupidity reigns. Once they become stupid they become atheists and vice versa.

"So many people today — and even professional scientists — seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is — in my opinion — the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth. " (Einstein)

Thomas Baum wrote "I used to believe in God but since I met God, I know that.."

If you believe that the bread you eat can cleanse you becuase you think it's the "body" of God because some idiot sprinkled "holy" water in it, it seems you have not found God.

METAPHOR, METAPHOR, METAPHOR. Learn to understand that first because the Lord always speak in metaphors. Those who take it literal like the Pharisees and the masses who abandoned him for stating that they should "eat his body" are stupid people.

And since you took it literal yourself, it's a manifestation that you belong to the same group.

anonymous trucker:

I am Arminius. I am male. Don't believe me? My claymore is at hand, and my ancestral Celtic fury is boiling. Want a piece of me?

Meanwhile, stuff it.

Arminius

HAMLET, et al - well, you have a point, but people do like to BS...and what better place than anonymously among the anonymous in cyberspace? Kind of surreal - and where else can you do this crazy stuff and get away with it - that is, without creating suspicious stares from the people at work, family members, and loved ones?

Where I happen to live these days (S. Carolina) any discussion that smacks of atheism and/or of a non-belief in THE SUPREME BEING is met variously with icy stares, head shaking, looks of disbelief, and very often, a rather superior aire of pity and condescension! And maybe an invitation to the nearest Baptist church will follow - or not.

The topic of religion is an intellectual exercise and decades long interest for me, and it's just kind of fun. I was at one point many eons ago planning on teaching comparative religion at the highschool level - didn't happen.

If I aspired to do that in our current religion-soaked environment in the USA, I'd have to relocate - maybe to Copenhagen, land of the 'happiest' people in the world, and all probably due to the fact that they're relatively free of religion and have national healthcare - and it just looks like a beautiful place to live.

But then, what would a comparative religionist be doing there anyway?? Maybe playing the guitar in one of the local pubs. Damn good beer, I've heard .... but of course, not Guinness. Well, maybe it's off to Dublin then.....now those are the kind of Catholics I was born and raised with!

..... and so, this is why we love On Faith.

Hamlet

In person, face to face, eye to eye, people are more guarded and polite with each other, than we, quasi-virtual-stranger-friends are here. It is almost like thought exhibitionism, that is, we pour out our thoughts which are normally unknown to others, in a way that others may know them.

So, we are more intimate, and less polite, than in person.

I agree that arguing about the existence of God is a futile excercise. But I do not feel that I am really arguing with other people, not usually. I am arguing with myself. My beliefs are a mass of tangled confusions, and I am just trying to comb out all the kinks, although, probably I will never be totally successful.

If you will notice, the question at hand about the Evangelical Manifesto, is nowhere to be found. Why is that, I wonder? It is because the topic is so obscure that no one cares about it, not even Evangelicals.

The poetry was nice, while it lasted.

DITLD wrote "Even people, like Spiderman, who reject science, and seem confused about truth and the validity of knowing and knowledge, "

Take out my name and substitute it with yours. I told you Im an engineer and engineers deal with pure science. I know why everything in this universe like the earth, the planets, moon are formed circular or round in shape and you don't. That's because of gravity present in mass or matter.

Read this quote from Einstein again and again and again so you be able to understand where you stand.

"So many people today — and even professional scientists — seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is — in my opinion — the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth. "

YOU ARE A MERE ARTISAN AND ME, A REAL SEEKER OF TRUTH IN THE MOLD OF EINSTEIN, IF YOU WILL.

Stop defining me coz you are the most unqualified. Intuition is not science. Deal with that. Intuition opined that the earth is flat. Gravity with it's equations can prove that to be false. If man can tinker with gravity, he will be able to mold the earth into a SQUARE OR MAKE IT APPEAR IN THE FORM OF YOUR HEAD OR FACE.

If you cannot understand that,that is because you are not an engineer or a true scientist. Just learn to accept that your brain lacks something instead of defining me to your liking.

Hamlet

O how clever! You're multi-lingual. I'm so impressed. I don't meet many snobs.

Permission to respond?

Quieta non movere. (O isn't this fun?)

Arminius can look after herself.

TARZAN

Did you read the whole post that I wrote, because I did write more than that God Is Real.

I have a question, why would someone compare me with Einstein? We are two completely different people, just like every person on this planet or has been on this planet or will be on this planet are different.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Hello Gerry:)

That's funny. lol

Ravel's Bolero is too hot and too sexy after one see how Torville and Dean used that music to ice-melting, hormone surging effect in their freestyle ice-skating during one of the winter olympics years ago. So, can't have that sort of devil's music in the hereafter.

And like a dream within a dream to have me wearing a scarf. It keeps my hair clean what with all the debris from incoming fires.

And what! Not even a shimmering silvery stealth bomber, but a golden Sherman tank drawn by eight white horses to go to heaven?

Where are the celestial choruses singing Handel's Hallejujah? Where is the sky opening up, and the Divine light shining though?

And not even a special edition B747 like space shuttle to go up to the hereafter? E-class for those sinful believers and atheists ending in hell. Premiere e-class for deists, agnostics and doubters ending in purgatory. Business class for believers who lied and cheated on their wives and countries and want to talk their way into heaven. First class for the sinless ones going to heaven.

All served by angels - burqa-clad ones in all classes, except those serving in first class wearing string bikinis for a foretaste of heaven to come and so forth - in the Garden of Eden where it is so lush with flowing streams and singing birds that both fruits and nuts flourished.

Transport to hereafter food served - angel food cake, devil's food cake, angel on horseback, devil on horseback.

Oh, I heard that all men were frisked and deprived of their "seeds" at the entrance prior to getting in the transport to the hereafter. It is deem as an illegal and offensive fluids. Can't have them spreading their "seeds" in the universe like God.

I heard the angels/virgins also look like the ones Boticelli painted, not only as what Michelangelo painted.

Just too bad your dream ended with, a stop snoring wake-up call and warning by your wife.

It would have continued as you being given a tour and you would come to a room where Stalin is being lecherous with Greta Garbo.

It's heaven for Stalin, and hell for Garbo in the same room.

Regards
"J"

Hamlet opines:

"As for the great God debate, for the life of me, I cannot see why it continues. No one will convince the other on this thread, so why bother?"

As a former religionist, I have to disagree, and disagree quite strongly. My eventually freeing myself from religion's shackles involved a long-term process that led to my EVENTUALLY seeing the light, so to speak.

My "conversion" from believer to non-believer took many years, much investigation and a lot of intellectual debate among friends and colleagues. No, there was no blinding moment of revelation - that's the domain of the religious. But the enlightenment did happen - eventually.

Sure - no one is going to see an on-the-spot conversion of a religionist into a non-believer from the chats that occur at this blog, but that's not the mandate of this blog, is it? This is a place for the free discussion of ideas (at least until the WaPo censors take their vitamins). The postings of the rationalists on this blog are only part of a cumulative effort that may eventually disencumber a believer of their religious folly.

And that's why the postings continue, at least from my end.

Trucker,

Que es su problema? Aminius es un buen hombre, comprende?

Gerry,

Read your post! LOL! One question: No Guiness?

There are a lot of folks calling other folks stupid, I think, while brilliant and knowledgeable also float too freely. It only takes a few seconds to google something on the web, and fly right back here from cypberspace with dazzling mots in talon.

Let us realize that most of us are neither stupid nor brilliant. We have different kinds of knowledge, different degrees of knowledge in different areas, the better, I would hope, to learn from one another.

Bigoted and despicable are, of course, a different story.

As for the great God debate, for the life of me, I cannot see why it continues. No one will convince the other on this thread, so why bother? For us atheists, the matter is quite simple. It's Constitutional. INterference by organized religions in domestic policy is a matter to raise with our Congressmen, Senators, etc. "Faith-based" funding is a pet target of mine, and if you want to put up your Godless dukes, pick a target of your own.

Arguing on this matter is pointless, is it not?

Danielitld

I'm allowed to pull-over whenever I'm taken with a burst of creativity.(ahem & lol)

Otherwise, like now, I have 4 days off.

cheers..

http://atheists.more-advanced.com/2008/03/02/pat-condell-interview-new-dvd/

Arminius. do not click on the above link. It will hurt your feelings.

But everybody else can have a great giggle with the new King of the atheists.

Schmoozealert,

If you're going to criticize Einstein you shouldn't turn to cranks for ammunition. I copied this from your link:

"According to Einstein’s ‘relativity postulate’, if two material bodies A and B are in uniform relative motion, it is equally correct to say that A is stationary and B is moving as it is to say that B is stationary and A is moving. The belief that motion is always relative to some ‘arbitrary’ frame of reference leads to the claim that although it may be more convenient to assume that the earth orbits the sun, it is no truer than saying that the sun orbits the earth!"

Bulletin: The sun and earth are NOT in uniform relative motion! What a dunderhead!

P.S.: When an article uses the word "theosophical" with a straight face it's pretty safe to say it's total garbage.

Dear Gerry -

Thanks for the mention in your dream. Allow me to say:

1. If trapped in a foxhole, I doubt I'd be listening to an excerpt from Carmen. Perhaps, Massenet's "La Navarraise," or, more likely, something calming. "In The Mood" might fit the bill.

2. Einstein playing Bach out of tune? I doubt it. He was probably employing "natural" or untempered tuning as was the norm in the Baroque era, at least before Bach wrote his Well-Tempered Klavier. Einstein's fiddle only sounds out of tune to modern ears accustomed to the tuning compromises made to equalize tuning across all keys on modern keyboard instruments. But Einstein being the genius his was (is?) would know to employ Bach's untempered tuning system when playing the violin.

3. In response to Heisenberg's furtive smile, I'd probably reply, "who knew heaven was located in Copenhagen?"

Gerry,

I re-read your post, and it got even funnier. You write well. But at least get the tank right. The Sherman was known to the Germans as a 'Tommy Cooker' because it was so vulnerable. There is an authenticated action where one German Tiger destroyed 11 Shermans before being driven off by air power.

Arminius

Ender

Re: Your post to me

When you say one group with respect to oil, do you mean ethno-religious groups or national groups? If you mean ethno-religious then we are talking about multi-national Ameri-Christian and Euro-Christians, along with OPEC. The two work rather closely together, and this is not difficult to research.

BP caused a catastrophe here not long ago resulting in injury and death and went unpunished.

"Zionism" is a technical term more properly referred to as ZionismS and has nothing to do with Messianism, never did. Exile, etc., is a separate and real historical issue, but one that is secondary.

The influence of both Jews and Christian fundamentalists in all this is largely illusory. The US needs Israel because it can manipulate it. We can't do this with Egypt, and so we merely give them their four to five billion dollars annually, which never reaches its starving masses.

The facts are not difficult to come by, but are not reported for the reasons Merry states.
There is a lot more to say, such as the US insisting that Israel manufacture weapons to sell to Egypt, which then wind up in the hands of terrorists, who kill Israelis--Jews, Christians, Muslems.

There was the utter fiasco of the first Gulf War, when the US insisted it should "defend" Israel lest Sadaam et al become upset. The government then sold the people its typical pro-US bill of goods, and so we "defended" them. It was then reported both there and here that one one died.

However, I was very near where the missiles struck and if the people I saw weren't dead, well then there is no death. It finally came out that more than two hundred people were killed, all unnecessarily.

It has taken a long, long time of all kinds of suppressed information, but more and more is being leaked to the Israelis. They still want peace, and sadly, at almost any cost, since it will not come.

In the interim, it would be best if we got the hell out of there. They can get support elsewhere, but we don't want that, you see. Then, well, whom would we manipulate?

Mubarek?

Right

Dear Anonymous Trucker

I hope you're not driving your truck and typing on your keyboard at the same time.

Gerry,

Well, pretty clever! But don't look for me clutching a work of Dawkins, although I should read him. If you saw me in a foxhole, I would have a Model 1911 Colt 45 pistol and a grenade launcher, because that is what I carried in the army. Meanwhile, please register a complaint against JJ, who is busily poisoning this blog, among others.

Arminius

Last night I had a dream. I was ducking away in a foxhole, bombs bursting in air, with Jihadist in a pretty headscarf and a Quran, Mr. Mark with a tiny CD player playing Bizet's torero song, Spiderman2 with a pocket bible, MaryCunningham with her rosary, the friendly doubter Arminius with an old, already greasy copy of Dawkins, and the multiborn Moses Baum, who incessantly murmured “See you in the kingdom”. We were all pretty scared.

The Jihadist all of a sudden pulled out her spiritual mobile telephone and made a call. To our surprise, a huge golden Sherman tank, drawn by eight white horses, softly descended just in front of our fox hole. A large number of virgins, up to 72, got out, took us by our hands and safely shoved us into the tank. The virgins wore burqas, of course, so we have to leave this particular question as to their nature open.

The eight white horses ascended with tank, virgins and us (except Spiderman, poor guy, who had to stay behind because he didn’t believe in so many virgins, only Mary. He kept screaming “stupid, stupid, stupid”, and I don’t know if he meant himself or the rest of the crew.). The armed chariot quickly rose into heaven, where after a few million light years (minutes in a dream, god didn’t have that much time!) we were frisked at the entrance for all sorts of illegal or offensive fluids.

There wasn’t St. Peter at the door, as I had hoped, only Einstein and Heisenberg. Einstein played some Bach on the violin, a little bit out of tune, and Heisenberg gave a furtive smile to Mr. Mark, mentioning the “Unschärferelation”, the uncertainty principle.

The virgins then ushered us to God, who looked much like we all know him through Michelangelo, but he wasn’t as friendly and as loving as we had hoped, and with a deep reproachful voice told us: You fools, don’t you know that I don’t exist?
I don’t know how the dream ends, because I woke up by a jolt of my wife, who grunted: “Stop snoring”!

Those who put Einstein on a pedastal: For your reading pleasure....the fallacies of Einstein

(but you got to give the guy (Einstein) credit...he had a measure of humility that some on this thread, uh, don't)

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/relativ.htm#rel3

Arminius

Your favorite word seems to be offensive. You're always being offended, or worried that someone might offend you, or that others are offensive and hurtful.
You must be a nervous wreck; must have bitten off all your finger nails just being here.

Is that what life is for you, avoiding being offended and hurt? Are folks who are inoffensive what you seek? You'd never survive trucking.

You must lead a very sheltered life and you can't get out much.

Of course though, there aren't any offensive people in church. Everyone's nice and boringly polite.
But this isn't church dude, or I wouldn't be here.
I'm an atheist. But I can see why you're religious. It's a safe place to be. It's shelter.

moderator

please remove the pugnatious post of 4:30 - it's from a big bully - a real meanie - a nasty nellie - everyone's very fond of dear dear arminius - he's our conscience canary in this cave of craven cretins

moderator;

please remove sarcastic slurs of 3;41pm.

this from a whinging wimp whose looking for G-d the Teddy Bear to cuddle with and is not to be offended or he will stamp his little foot and throw hissy fit and go to bed.
Ammonious Ah.

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US

Thank-o-Shame!

I just read the Evangelical Manifesto.

We are only on about the 520th comment, but I finally read it. Now, suddenly, for some strange reason, the question seems to make a little more sense.

This Evangeclical Manifesto seems to be an admission of guilt, and an expression of regret, over what this type of Christianity has become, and an invitation to re-think things, and try and do better.

When I think of Evangelical, I think of "conservative Repbulican homophobe." This manifesto as much as admitted that this has become its reputation, which it is seeking to shed, and reform.

But I think it is too late; that Evangelicalism is fading away rapidly, and that its grasp for some accomodation in the "public square" is an acknowledgement that its churches are empty of thinking, intelligent, and educated people.

This was really a PR document, to soften the harshness of this brand of Christianity. Notice that as the fortunes of the Republican Party have faded, now the Evangelicals are repentent, and say that they were wrong to tie themselves with any one political party or movement, and that they are sorry, and can't the have another chance.

I am not quite sure who wrote this manifesto, and by what authority they proclaim it; I think that is a group of people who worry about what is happening to Christianity, and are trying to moderate its harsh public face, to slow its decline. But I would imagine that most "Evangelicals" have never even heard of this document, much less, read it.

Wayne,

You are the atheist equivalent of Spiderman2. Both of you are totally offensive.

I wouldn't take on Jihadist lightly, if I were you...

Jihadist

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are forms of socially sanctioned lunacy, their fundamental tenents and rituals irrational, archaic and more importantly when it comes to matters of humanity’s long-term survival, mutually incompatible. There are names for people who have beliefs for which there is no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common, we call them ‘religious’; otherwise, they are likely to be called ‘mad,’ ‘psychotic’ or ‘delusional.’ ‘’ To cite but one example: ‘’Jesus Christ—who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death and rose bodily into the heavens—can now be eaten in the form of a cracker. A few Latin words spoken over your favorite Burgundy, and you can drink his 'blood' as well. Is there any doubt that a lone subscriber to these beliefs would be considered mad?’’ The danger of religious faith is that it allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy.

Any wonder why atheists are happy with the latest Einstein document showing that the great thinker saw through all this religious nonsense when he was twelve years old.

What are you, forty something? Fiftyish? Time to consider that maybe, just maybe, Professor Einstein could see as a child what you are blind to as an adult; perhaps willfully blind.

'It could end up in my future "Book of Idiots : Look Ma, No Brains".'

AS I've said before, the perfect title for your autobiography.

Tarzan;
Get back to the jungle where you belong.
We are civilized here and don't pay attention to no goofballs.

Mr Baum;

I recently invented my own God, Zotte. It's better to have your own personal God which others cannot see or communicate with or attack. He's all mine and nobody elses. So if others don't believe in Him, that's fine. I don't want them to believe in Him. He's mine alone.

Like I personally don't believe in your God. No disrespect intended. I just don't believe in Him.
Why should I? You could be delusional for all I know.(Not to suggest that you are). Besides, He's your God not mine.

As all Gods are to some extent imaginary, I urge everyone to invent their own. Why bother with controversial Gods that people are always fighting over, when you can have your own God that's yours and yours alone. You don't even have to let others know He exists.

Peace brother, and the love of Zotte be with you.

Dear DITLD & Andrew -

Of course, Spidey is a lost cause. But as James Stewart says as the title character in the movie, "Mr Smith Goes To Washington,":

"The lost causes are the only causes worth fighting for."

Since we're on the Spiderman topic, I think he is a lost cause. I am not quite sure why he is posting here. He is not trying to persuade people of anything, or teach people anything, or show people a better way to think. He is just sort of an erratic, childish fellow.

Mr Mark;

Splendid comment to the Spidery one. Of course, it's all to no avail. Wouldn't it be wonderful if he surprised us by saying something like,

" Mmm Mr Mark, maybe you've got a point. Let me think about it...you never know, I guess I could be wrong...mmm..let me get back to you. I need to think this through."

It'll never happen of course. But if it did - wouldn't it be luverly? O wouldn't it be luverly?
Like the sun coming out.

Thomas Paul Moses Baum says there really is a god.

Einstein, who spent his life searching for such an entity, concluded that there is no god, and says such an idea is naive.

Who you gonna believe? A religious whacko, or a seriously dedicated searcher for scientific truth?

No contest.

Dear Spidey -

I happen to know all of the other Einstein quotes you posted. Apparently, you're too STUPID to realize that when Einstein used the word "god," he was using it METAPHORICALLY.

I find that strange as you are constantly pointing out that the Bible is full of metaphors that stupid people can't understand. I've also noticed that when I and others post contradictory quotes from the Bible, you're always Johnny-on-the-spot to aver that "there's no contradiction, your VIEW has been clouded and you're too stupid to understand god's infallible text."

Once again, we watch as Spidey unsuccessfully tries to move the goal posts.

But what's the most pathetic aspect of your posting all of those Einstein quotes is the apparent fact that you feel it is absolutely imperative that you claim THE greatest mind of the 20th century as a religious person who believed in the Judeo-Xian god. Your reason for doing so is both ego-centric and laughable: you do it because you somehow believe doing so transfers a bit of Einstein's intellect to your idiotic ravings and - by extension - to you yourself.

Well, Spidey, welcome to your nightmare. Ol' Albert has jumped up from beyond the grave and has bitten your convoluted take on history right in your bulbous ass.

I, for one, am enjoying the spectacle. And guess what, Spidey? I don't feel at all bad about having a good laugh at your expense!

So , there's no need for you to post further rants in "defense" of your legendary and now-indisputable misreading of Einstein. Don't fret, you're in good company - Walter Isaacson made a similar mistake in his recent tome on the great man.

Priceless stuff, this Einstein quote. I'm still predicting that in due time, Spidey will assert in all seriousness that "Einstein was an idiot."

Let's see how I do as a prophet. :)

DanielITLD

In Wales in the 40's and fifties religion had an iron grip on much that went on.
Sundays were grim indeed. Everything closed up except for churches. No theaters or cinemas open,no pubs or bars open. Most restaurants closed, and all shops shut except for the occasional tobacconist and newspaper shop.
Kids were usually dressed in their Sunday best and expected to stay clean and behave properly, and attend afternoon Sunday school, and religious services in the evening.
Us kids hated the deadness of Sundays and tried by devious methods to avoid all religion, and would slip away if possible and find other things to do.
But it was a dreaded day for all, unlike Saturday, everybody's favourite day.
By the sixties all this had changed; and nowadays Sundays are like Saturdays, and churches have lost their power and most of the people too.
Many churches and chapels are now bingo halls, and those churches that manage to survive are attended usually by just handfulls of people, and seem likely not to survive much longer.
Religion here in the UK seems to be on its last shaky legs. And most people are happy with that.

I used to believe in God but since I met God, I know that He is real and that He is a Trinity and also that He is not a He, a She or an It but is Pure Love even tho God-Incarnate was a Male, a Jewish Male. I use the pronoun He because pronoun usage can come in handy.

It sure is something that so many people seem to get mad at God for giving us free will and some of the ones that seem to get the most upset are the ones that do not believe that God is Real.

Besides the fact that God has a Plan and has had His Plan since before creation, another of the things that I am grateful to God for is knowing that He is not the egotistical maniac that some of the people that know His Name think that He is.

Someone on one of the postings mentioned something about True Religion and if it would ever be found, well in the bible it mentions that True Religion is taking care of widows and orphans and being unstained in the world or something to that effect and since none of us is perfect then the taking care of widows and orphans is about the closest anyone on this imperfect planet could come to, according to that definition.

Seems to me taking care of widows and orphans means trying to help out anyone who is worse off than us and it does seem pretty obvious that all of us are worse off than everyone else in one way or another at least some time in our lives so it seems that we should be looking out for one another, does it not?

The definition of True Religion in the bible does not mention believing in God so according to the Bible if we don't at least try to be decent to our fellow human beings, who happen to be our brothers and sisters whether we like it or not or believe it or not, then all of our belief in God, according to God's revealed Word, doesn't mean nothing to God if we believe in the Bible as being God's revealed Word, correct or not?

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

To be a Christian these days one has to learn to defend oneself against the rationalism of all these atheists; they seem to be everywhere. Didn't have to do that in the old days. In the old days you just had to say "Jesus lives" and everyone would nod and say "Aint that the truth". Now not everyone agrees.

What went wong? That's easy. Education! Some dimwit got the crazy idea of educating the masses; letting them learn to read and think and figure things out. And so began the fall of man.

Now they even have places like this where the new faithless can congregate and chat and denounce the Lord and His followers. Where will it all end?

I know there is a God. We've met several times. But when I try telling this to some atheist skeptic, he'll laugh like I am an idiot.
Of course God is invisible to those who do not open their heart and mind to Him. I try to be invisible too when I'm among disbelievers, but I'm not very good at it. God can do it quite easily.

To be closer to God it helps to be simple. Learning is an impediment. The Heart counts more than the Brain.
Down with literacy and education for the masses.
It was The Great Error. We need to bring back the old time religion and place God back at the center of things where He belongs.
We seem to have forgotten that the Lord said Ignorance is Bliss, (it really is) and He loves most the beasts and the children, who are all unknowing.
Yes we have educated the masses away from religion. But its not too late to reverse this trend. Just bring back the old time religion.

E Favorite

I looked up Kant on Wikipedia. He believes that we are born with "a priori" knowledge, or something like that.

I said that we have an inborn sense of how things work and how the world is put together. But I do not think I got this idea from Kant. I got this idea from animals, who seem to know alot about the world, yet they do not go to school, read books, nor even have language. They apparently do not know anything, in the human sense, yet, at the same time, they seem to know alot.

That is how people are too. Even people, like Spiderman, who reject science, and seem confused about truth and the validity of knowing and knowledge, even these people still know alot about things work, and how the world is put together. It is a knowledge that even the most incurious person has.

So, I made a distinctiion between knowlege regarding the navigation of ones local landscape, and "irrelevant" knowledge, for the sake of knowing things, that are true, beyond what is necesary to navigate our local pathways, through our days, which all become well-worn and well-known to us. And I called this an "aesthetic of knowledge." And then I said that I could not define it, but it was a sort of artful judgement of what is true and what is not true. And because it involved artful judgement, some people seem alot better at it than other people, and that people who are good at it, can sense among them that they are kindred spirits.

Regarding being Catholic and Mary Cunningham, I do not understand her very well, and I do not understand Catholicism very well either. I admit, that to be an Irish Catholic in London would probably be a very different experience than being a "cafeteria" Catholic in the US.

I know many Catholic people; they are my friends, coworkers, neighbors, and even my in-laws, and blood relative. When they talk about Catholicism, I just listen and do not comment. Some of them love the Catholic Church; some of them hate it. I figure, it is some kind of internal feud, that I do not want to get mixed up in.

Jihadist, Jihadist, Jihadist, Mary C, Mary C, Mary C,

Hmmm, two "Abrahamics" suffer from the Three B Syndrome and do not address the "feems" (flaws/faults, errors, "evangelizing", muck and stench) of their religions. Sorry it does not work that way. Address the specific "feems"if you can and the world will listen and even might agree. Without this defense, however, you are "rhyming in the wind" and the "feemed" and Brainwashed terrorists in your midst will win.

Josh: "The reasons for unrest? REad Merry's post to begin with. AS for this "Abrahamic" business, this is a Vatican invention. Not being a papist, it holds no interest for me."

My interest is one of survival. The Abrahamic religions are all intent on keeping the middle east and it's conflicts, whether Israel vs Islam or Shia vs. Sunni embroiled in constant conflict. This is religious cover for political power struggles.

There are too many millions of American Christian that are the most virulent of Zionist, all because the hallucinatory ramblings of one of their early writers direct them that their much desired EOD can't happen unless Jews control all of biblical Israel and build a temple.

Yes, its superstitious tripe and guarantees political turmoil until one group controls all of the oil production in the region.

Jihadist said:

"Come now. I remember you taking me aside once for merely pointing out Muslims don't believe in the Trinity, the resurrection, the Original Sin etc."

Jihadist,
That's not what I said. I think this a miscommunication, based on the fact that we are comminicating via this blog, separated by thousands of miles, and possibly, one of us, at least, in a second language.

I said that I believe that most Christians do not believe in the Trinity, and that therefore, most Christians' concept of God is the same as most Moslems', and the theological differences, are just what is written down on paper. (Ok maybe I didn't say it all with this much detail, but you just misunderstood me because you didn't read my mind good enough, to understand what I really meant).

And I said that most Christians think of Jesus in a way that is similar to the way most Moslems think of Mohammed. And, then I said, that these two religions are mirror images of each other; I believe that was my main point.

Yes, I am not a Catholic. I can tell you something that you may not realize, because most people seem to have lost their memory on how thing used to be.

I am from a small town with less than 3,000 people. In my small town, there were 12 churches. Mosst everyone belonged to one of these 12 churches. But there were also, people among us who were anti-religious, and didn't belong to any church.

We didn't have religion in school, nor in that "public square" that you hear tell of. There was no public proclamiation of Christmas by the mayor, and no Christmas pageants in the public school. Everything relgious was done in church, and no one missed out, because everyone, almost, went to church.

Not only was there no religion in the "public square," but it was considered impolite, and not nice, to bring up the subject of religion casually. This is the culture in which I was raised, when there were many different churches, co-existing together.

People don't seem to remember that that is how it was, in the 1950's and 1960's. Does anyone else remember this, or is it just me?

Daniel ITLD says: “Maybe I should take a class in philosophy, to try and undo all the damage.”

No, no, no. what damage? Who said anything about damage. And just because you didn’t think of some of this stuff first doesn’t mean your thoughts are not original. Remember, people have been pondering this stuff for ages before you came along – it’s the human condition. Just read some of the philosophers or take a class if you want, to understand how your fellow philosophers think. Unless you really don’t care, which seems unlikely for a natural philosopher.

E Favorite

I’ve noticed that oncologist posters only seem to come alive when a cancer, a real cancer, comes into their midst. That’s what is frustrating about the oncology credo, the definition is negative. Without the example of a cancer against which to react, they seem desultory: “They tie themselves up into knots/Define themselves by what they’re not.”

Posts being blocked - will try again later

E favorite

Hello Daniel in the Lion's Den,

I take it you are not a Catholic.

Do read up John Gray's Straw Dogs to see where Mary Cunningham is coming from with regard to what she is saying on atheists defining themselves against believers by what they are not, i.e. non-belief as opposed to belief.

It is a fact people do define themselves against others by what they are not - be it racial, cultural, gender, beliefs, ideologies or nationalities. People do define themselves by political parties too.

I've read posts by even other Christians towards Catholics in On Faith threads that are really nasty and feel for Soja of Australia, Viejita, and Mary Cunningham. And Spidey calling the Vatican the seat of Satan and such.

Come now. I remember you taking me aside once for merely pointing out Muslims don't believe in the Trinity, the resurrection, the Original Sin etc. This sort of Muslim defination of belief is not acceptable to be stated by a Muslim but all right for atheists and others to say so?

If you do recall, Mary Cunningham is Irish, Catholic and living in London. England is still not quite a friendly place for Catholics. She related in her posts before what it was like to be Irish, Catholic and living in England during the "troubles" in Northern Ireland and when the IRA were active. Surely you would not know what it was like for an Irish Catholic living in England then? It was widely known that Irish Americans do support and fund the IRA then, right up to the late eighties. Or even later if I'm not mistaken.

Yes. Do take a class in philosophy. Playing by ear is sometimes too random and too "go with the flow" until one ends in a place one don't want to be in the first place.

We out here are not so sheltered from the realities of terrorists operating in our midst and the impact it has on us personally.

Cheers
"J"

Wonderful skeptics and other non-believers.

Robert Frost, Vincent Van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway, Arthur C. Clarke, Dave Matthews, Billy Joel, George Carlin, Voltaire, Mark Twain, Frank Zappa, Gene Roddenberry, George Bernard Shaw, George Burns, Groucho Marx, W.C. Fields, Leo Tolstoy, Kurt Vonnegut, James Joyce, Isaac Asimov, John Lennon, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alfred Hitchcock, Irving Berlin, George Orwell, Robert Heinlein, Oscar Wilde, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Christopher Marlowe, Noel Coward, Charlie Chaplin, H.P. Lovecraft, Woody Allen, Gillian Anderson, Marlon Brando, Dick Cavett, Jean Luc Godard, John Sayles, Jodie Foster, Mira Sorvino, Simone de Beauvoir, Gore Vidal, William Shatner, Stanley Kubrick, Ursula K. LeGuin, Ian McKellen, Burt Lancaster, Katharine Hepburn, Christopher Reeve, Max von Sydow, Ingmar Bergman, Rodney Dangerfield, Angelina Jolie, Bruce Lee, Diane Keaton, Arthur Rubenstein ....and oh yeah...Albert Einstein.

http://atheists.more-advanced.com/2008/03/02/pat-condell-interview-new-dvd/

Hamlet/Lear/Horatio/Kent

I can play musical instruments by ear. So it works like this: I don't know how it works.

But obviously, I hear how music works, and somehow, I can put it all together. I have a very well developed capacity for auditory imagery.

So that must also be how my philosophy works; I just play it all by ear, and don't know where it comes from, although, obviously, I must have been exposed to this stuff somehow. I do not know about Kant, but I think probably, in various discussions throughout my life, people must have put forth his ideas to me, as an interested person, for me to think about, and you know how it is in talking, people don't foot-note things, or worry about plagarism; they just tallk. Or they may say, "oh, read this book, I know you will like it;" and then I say, "oh thank you so much, I certainly will;" and then I never do get around to reading it.

Maybe I should take a class in philsophy, to try and undo all the damage.

About Mary Cunningham's uneasiness with people defining themselves by what they are not; what is so wrong with that? If the whole world is dragging you along in a direction, that you do not want to go, should you just go along anyway? Just going along, for the heck of it? I do not see anything admirable in that.

If a person does not have an explanation for something, then how does that make other people's explanations true and right? It does not. Mary Cunningham finds it impossible to comprehend how people can define themselves by what they are not. But I find it impossible to comprehend how people let their beliefs default to what everyone else believes.

Hello Mary Cunningham,

"Life spirit"? Now that is something to add to "spiritual dilettante" and "spiritual airhead" which I learn from you.

Good to see you drop by here for a bit in this "demon haunted" blogpit. We believers are the demons and devils haunting this "atheist blog".

Some atheists may just be trying to exorcise believers out of this blog. We're not supposed to inhibit and pollute the "pure" reason, logic, rationality and humanism of this blog. But, why not? This demon has yet to vomit green bile all over this blog.

You said : “They tie themselves up into knots/Define themselves by what they’re not.”

It reminds me of what John Gray said in his "Straw Dogs : Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals". Close to what you posted in the second part there.

See you around. If not here, in other On Faith threads where I do see you post. I'll miss your sparky, sparkly and spunky posts if you don't.

Regards
"J"

HAMLET - looks like you've discovered the Golden Mean of Pythagorus and the ancient Greeks - speaking of mirror images. Thus comes the hermetical idea of correspondences e.g.'as above, so below' - and perhaps Blake's alchemical mysticism ....'seeing the world in a grain of sand'.

Fractal images as generated by computers have a great deal in common with holographic images, where each arbitrary point on the image is seen to reproduce the image in it's entirety. And in fact, David Bohm was convinced that the material universe was very possibly constructed of holographic images that were projected from the 'virtual' or implicate order (which some call the zero point field, or quantum vacuum). All things and for all time, are contained here - Ervin Laslo has written extensively about this realm, which he calls the Akashic Field (after the Upanishads)......

Of course what may cause these projections is the real mystery! While Bohm did not identify the 'hidden variables' that causes the manifest universe to arise, others have theorized that consciousness itself is the X factor - e.g. the observer effect in the collapse of the wave function that gives us a particulate world. With this theme, Consciousness is without boundries or containment of any kind.

And so it is at the moment of the Big Bang - if there was a Big Bang, the universe arises in it's entirety, spontaneously and from those 'bubbles' you mentioned - the quantum foam. But each quantum element is forever entangled non-locally - and shares an identity with all other elements that survive the particle/anti-particle collisions that are occurring even at this moment.

Since this cosmic process may occur over and over without end, the idea of an initial start up by an Abrahamic creator is seen as null and void....although the Vedic idea of the days and nights of Brahma has merit. The Kaballah goes further, and states outright that the Ain Sof or great unmanifest can never be known....perhaps Einstein was a Cabalist??

Well, I've plainly said too much!!

regards to all.......

Mary Cunningham,

Thumping the "feems" (faults, errors, "evangelizing", muck and stench) of Christianity.

1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was either the embellishment of the lives of three different men or a mythical character as was Moses, the "Tablet-Man" who talked to burning bushes and made much magic in Egypt.

Many of the 1.5 million Conservative Jews and many of their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.

The muck and stench in Judaism you ask?

Belief that that the Jews are god's chosen people and its resulting consequences.
simpletoremember.com/vitals/ConservativeTorah.htm

2. Jesus was an illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter/simple preacher man who suffered from hallucinations 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. 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".

The muck and stench of Catholicism you ask?

Pedophiliac priests, "one and only true Church" and its consequences, atonement theology and original sin!!!!

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

The muck and stench of non-Catholic Christian churches you ask?

Adulterous preachers, "propheteering" /profiteering/ evangelizing preachers and atonement theology.

"Pwftft" of god, my tinkerbell dear,
fairy you are, myth of my childish dreams,
Ever gone now, ringing with that final reality,
Free at last, free at last, free at last.

(Allegedly from Einstein) : "the word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."

Mr. Mark, below are quotes from Einstein. This alleged "new letter" from Einstein, although old, does not fit to the many remarks Einstein made. Only idiots (many of your kind) would believe that it came from Einstein. It's a total contradiction to all of his quotes and as usual only idiots can't see it as such.

"The highest principles for our aspirations and judgments are given to us in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition. It is a very high goal which, with our weak powers, we can reach only very inadequately, but which gives a sure foundation to our aspirations and valuations. "

Source : On religion and society, in Out of My Later Years (1950), p. 27.

"I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God."

Source : As quoted in Glimpses of the Great (1930) by G. S. Viereck

"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom. It is no mere chance that our older universities developed from clerical schools. Both churches and universities — insofar as they live up to their true function — serve the ennoblement of the individual. They seek to fulfill this great task by spreading moral and cultural understanding, renouncing the use of brute force.
The essential unity of ecclesiastical and secular institutions was lost during the 19th century, to the point of senseless hostility. Yet there was never any doubt as to the striving for culture. No one doubted the sacredness of the goal. It was the approach that was disputed. "

Source : "Moral Decay" (1937); Later published in Out of My Later Years (1950)

"But let us not forget that human knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life. Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and JESUS ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the enquiring and constructive mind.
What these blessed men have given us we must guard and try to keep alive with all our strength if humanity is not to lose its dignity, the security of its existence, and its joy in living. "

Source : Written statement (September 1937) as quoted in Albert Einstein, The Human Side: New Glimpses From His Archives (1981) edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman

"Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this one ever in flesh and blood walked upon this Earth." (Spiderman2's note : He could have come to this conclusion by his observation on how Jesus Christ is treated today as a myth. If it had happened to Christ, why not to Gandhi? )

Source : Statement on the occasion of Gandhi's 70th birthday (1939) Einstein archive 32-601, published in Out of My Later Years (1950).

"So many people today — and even professional scientists — seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is — in my opinion — the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth. "

"For the most part we humans live with the false impression of security and a feeling of being at home in a seemingly trustworthy physical and human environment. But when the expected course of everyday life is interrupted, we are like shipwrecked people on a miserable plank in the open sea, having forgotten where they came from and not knowing whither they are drifting. But once we fully accept this, life becomes easier and there is no longer any disappointment. "

Source : Letter (26 April 1945); as quoted in Albert Einstein, The Human Side: New Glimpses From His Archives (1981) edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman

On the subject of Einstein and God Friedrich Dürrenmatt once said, "Einstein used to speak of God so often that I almost looked upon him as a disguised theologian."

STUPIDITY HAS NO CURE. WHEN WILL ATHEISTS LEARN?

FOOLS, says the Lord of them.

More quotes are coming if the above doesn't satisfy you. Idiots are idiots and even with a thousand wisdom-filled quotes, they would still claim that Einstein was an athesit or a stupid person like themselves.

"So many people today — and even professional scientists — seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is — in my opinion — the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth. "

"For the most part we humans live with the false impression of security and a feeling of being at home in a seemingly trustworthy physical and human environment. But when the expected course of everyday life is interrupted, we are like shipwrecked people on a miserable plank in the open sea, having forgotten where they came from and not knowing whither they are drifting. But once we fully accept this, life becomes easier and there is no longer any disappointment. "

Source : Letter (26 April 1945); as quoted in Albert Einstein, The Human Side: New Glimpses From His Archives (1981) edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman

On the subject of Einstein and God Friedrich Dürrenmatt once said, "Einstein used to speak of God so often that I almost looked upon him as a disguised theologian."

STUPIDITY HAS NO CURE. WHEN WILL ATHEISTS LEARN?

FOOLS, says the Lord of them.

More quotes are coming if the above doesn't satisfy you. Idiots are idiots and even with a thousand wisdom-filled quotes, they would still claim that Einstein was an athesit or a stupid person like themselves.

(Allegedly from Einstein) : "the word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."

Mr. Mark, below are quotes from Einstein. This alleged "new letter" from Einstein, although old, does not fit to the many remarks Einstein made. Only idiots (many of your kind) would believe that it came from Einstein. It's a total contradiction to all of his quotes and as usual only idiots can't see it as such.

"The highest principles for our aspirations and judgments are given to us in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition. It is a very high goal which, with our weak powers, we can reach only very inadequately, but which gives a sure foundation to our aspirations and valuations. "

Source : On religion and society, in Out of My Later Years (1950), p. 27.

"I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God."

Source : As quoted in Glimpses of the Great (1930) by G. S. Viereck

"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom. It is no mere chance that our older universities developed from clerical schools. Both churches and universities — insofar as they live up to their true function — serve the ennoblement of the individual. They seek to fulfill this great task by spreading moral and cultural understanding, renouncing the use of brute force.
The essential unity of ecclesiastical and secular institutions was lost during the 19th century, to the point of senseless hostility. Yet there was never any doubt as to the striving for culture. No one doubted the sacredness of the goal. It was the approach that was disputed. "

Source : "Moral Decay" (1937); Later published in Out of My Later Years (1950)

"But let us not forget that human knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life. Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and JESUS ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the enquiring and constructive mind.
What these blessed men have given us we must guard and try to keep alive with all our strength if humanity is not to lose its dignity, the security of its existence, and its joy in living. "

Source : Written statement (September 1937) as quoted in Albert Einstein, The Human Side: New Glimpses From His Archives (1981) edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman

(Allegedly from Einstein) : "the word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."

Mr. Mark, below are quotes from Einstein. This alleged "new letter" from Einstein, although old, does not fit to the many remarks Einstein made. Only idiots (many of your kind) would believe that it came from Einstein. It's a total contradiction to all of his quotes and as usual only idiots can't see it as such.

"The highest principles for our aspirations and judgments are given to us in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition. It is a very high goal which, with our weak powers, we can reach only very inadequately, but which gives a sure foundation to our aspirations and valuations. "

Source : On religion and society, in Out of My Later Years (1950), p. 27.

"I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God."

Source : As quoted in Glimpses of the Great (1930) by G. S. Viereck

"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom. It is no mere chance that our older universities developed from clerical schools. Both churches and universities — insofar as they live up to their true function — serve the ennoblement of the individual. They seek to fulfill this great task by spreading moral and cultural understanding, renouncing the use of brute force.
The essential unity of ecclesiastical and secular institutions was lost during the 19th century, to the point of senseless hostility. Yet there was never any doubt as to the striving for culture. No one doubted the sacredness of the goal. It was the approach that was disputed. "

Source : "Moral Decay" (1937); Later published in Out of My Later Years (1950)

E.Ponsonby-Smallpiece wrote " Try Matt Ridley. Seriously. You'll learn a whole lot about how dirt turns into brains over billions of years, and many other exciting things, in good plane English, "

If it's written in "good plane English", how come you can't state it here? Let me guess why. Hmm, You're ashamed of his theory. Plain and simple. It could end up in my future "Book of Idiots : Look Ma, No Brains".

"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it. " (Einstein)

Source : Letter to California student E. Holzapfel (March 1951) Einstein Archive 59-1013, quoted in Albert Einstein, the Human Side (1979) by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, and in The New Quotable Einstein (2005) by Alice Calaprice

CCNL

You need to rework your material. However, no poems because I'm afraid your ear is arhythmic.

Hello J,

Sunny morning here in London. Cool though. Last week was hot, maybe we have had our summer. Liked your contribution on ‘soul’ or in new age speak ‘life spirit’—ugh! I prefer the traditional word.

And speaking of souls. On to Chris Everett.

“The time is out of joint, O cursed spite
That I was ever born to set it right.”

Shakespeare was religious; the traditional religion of England, Catholicism, which during the all time he wrote (and of course for some three centuries afterwards) was prohibited upon pain of death. Still, the in “Hamlet” playwright conjures up the ghost of Hamlet’s father from Purgatory and Hamlet instinctively replies in kind, calling on the angels, banned prayers for the dead, and St Patrick, the patron of souls in Purgatory. All these things, natural for Shakespeare and English Catholics, were outlawed. IMO the strange things Hamlet saw were not so much the supernatural (Renaissance playwrights believed in the supernatural), but what was happening in England in the here and now.

Back to J:

Well, I’m glad you would be associated with me, for, in truth, I would say you’re the only one! Not that I mind, but somehow, I’ve feel uneasy here. I’ve noticed that atheists posters only seem to come alive when a believer, a real believer, comes into their midst. That’s what is frustrating about the atheist credo, the definition is negative. Without the example of a believer against which to react, they seem desultory: “They tie themselves up into knots/Define themselves by what they’re not.”

Anyway. Must run. Glad you liked the Eliot and Yeats. Can’t resist a little deconstruction of the lyricism of the “Four Ages”. It’s so symmetrical. First and last stanzas: line one seven syllables, line two eight. Repeats itself in fourth stanza, this allows that stupendous last line: “At stroke of midnight, God shall win.” What a master!

Now The Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist turns the discussion from googlized physics to googlized rock and roll and soul. Again no discussion of the significantly more important issue of the "feems" (flaws, errors, evangelization, muck and stench) of Islam. The only reason for this we assume is fear, fear of her imams/clerics, their truth squads, her husband, and or his/her family with such fear adding to the "feems" of Islam. Living in a free country, we have no such fears, so once again the "feems" of Islam for your perusal and commentary:

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 "evangelizing" Shiites are less than human or "evanualizing" Sunnis are less than human depending on what Islamic cult you belong to.

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 to include imams and clerics 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.

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

This agenda continues as shown by the assassination of Bhutto, the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the Islamic bombers of the trains in the UK and Spain, the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani “koranics”, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases, the Taliban nut jobs, and the Filipino “koranics”.

And who funds this muck and stench of terror? The warmongering, Islamic, Shiite, "evangelizing" terror and torture theocracy of Iran aka the Third Axis of Evil and also the Sunni, "evangelizing" "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.

DILTD,

I took your advice and looked up paranoia. All these yesrs, I've been telling the doctors that cyperspacemen were watching me, and now I have proof. There I am, right on the internet. Well?

Hamlet, et al

Hello Mary Cunningham,

It’s lunchtime over here and London should be waking up now.

Some garden variety run of the mill atheist as “Anonymous” is taking some cheap shots at you. Now, as for that fellow, some cheap shots on him:

* it does not makes sense to say, “one man’s soul is another man’s rock and roll”

* soul is different from rock

* soul is authentically black music but rock and roll is largely a white concoction of blues and country music (rockabilly and rockability)

* people say between a rock and a hard place but never between rock and roll and soul.

* there is soul (for believers) and there is lifeforce (for atheists)

* there is soul music and there is rock music

* there is soul music and there is soul food but not rock food

* there is rock and roll, rock, hard rock, country rock, folk rock, blue collar rock, psychedelic rock, death rock, Jesus rock, satanic rock, rock opera, pomp rock, art rock, acid rock etc

* of all sub-rock genres, psychedelic rock and acid are the worst and the most outdated

* there is now black soul and white soul

* Aretha Franklin is the Queen of Soul and Annie Lennox the princess of while soul, not Coltrane or Parker

* one can play jazz with feeling, but the human voice is the best instrument to articulate the human soul, and not to be filtered through a man-made instrument

* better to listen to Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra and even Peggy Lee over Parker or Coltrane

* Patsy Cline sang with more soul than Parker can ever blow.

* being dead is dead, but believers don’t think we should die like animals under a truck, but with dignity and with no regrets and anger with the world

* a believer don’t care if some atheists want to die like animals and be cremated like tissue paper

* sad that some atheists desperately need to claim Einstein as an atheist for some shared reflected glory and validation of being “geniuses” and “brights” Einstein is not them and they are not Einstein.

ABBA forever!

Cheers

"J"

Daniel,

What you write is pure Kant. What we see is what our categorical intelligence permits us to see.

Hamlet

PS. I mean no offense, as I indicated. Also, I can see no connection between what you have posted and Evangelical Manifests.

Perspective:

Pythagorean, are you? A woman I know mapped the universe onece--Bubbles, not banging. Won a MacArthur for her work.

Hamlet

Daniel - Curmudgeons don't necessarily talk a lot; they grumble a lot.

They do have bushy eyebrows though. You're quite right about that.

Perspective,

Actually, I take back what I just posted. The thinking of social critics using CT variously suggests mirroring and monism.

Hamlet, et al

Perspective:

I meant "applications," not implications. Sorry. I'm preoccupied.

Hamlet

for Arminius

From your definition of "curmudgeon," maybe I could be one, too. But I think I do not talk enough. I talk alot in writing, but not in person. And also, my eyebrows are not bushy enough.

Perspective:

Okay, but to the best of my knowledge, CT hasn't endorsed the "Big Bang." Also, I lose you when you say "the far more ancient hermetical idea that the macrocosm is duplicated perfectly in the microcosm."

I don't know if anyone has taken CT has explicitly taken CT in this direction, although the "thinking," at least in so far as nonscientific, nonmathematicl implications suggests this duality.

Hamlet, et al

I said:

"We have a sort of inborn knowledge of how the world works and how it's all put together."

I said:

"...the order of existence enables our perceptions and experiences."

I said:

"The order of the universe is the template, a template, from which our consiousness is impressed."

I said:

"we have been granted the capacity to comprehend our landscape, where we have been placed, to dwell, although we are able to be curious, about a little bit more."

I am aware, that in choosing these words and phrases, I am implying a sort of pre-figured nature to our experiences in the universe. These are the words I use to express my thoughts, because I do not have any other words to use.

But does this kind of thinking imply God? Possibly. But I do not even like the word "God." It has too much corrupted cultural baggage, and is almost a meaningless word, a place holder, a noun without meaning, that can mean anything.

I like the concept of "pre-figured" which I have borrowed from Sartre, believe it or not. And I like the word "Providence" which some Christians use to describe God, in a slightly more complex way, than is traditional. And I like the idea of "foundation of being" better than the big-bang, since I think the big-bang is a good theory, but, as yet, highly speculative.

In light of all of this, I can hardly relate to an Evangelical Manifesto nor what it could possibly mean.

HAMLET - I'm not a mathematician by any means, but I appreciate certain aspects of chaos theory. As Poincare was considered to be one of the world's foremost mathematical geniuses, it's hard to relate!

The whole idea of initial conditions controlling unpredictable or novel outcomes within set limits is an interesting one. This appears to be another way of looking at the phenomenon of rhythms and cycles, or so it seems to me. I can certainly buy into controlled fluctuations as a fundamental operating principle of our material universe. And supposedly how we first emerged from the quantum vacuum to begin with.........

And I appreciate the byproducts of prodigy. For example, Mandelbrot's fractal geometry as part and parcel of chaos is a beautiful metaphor for the unfolding universe, to my mind. I understand the mathematics was first conceived to measure irregular dimensions, but it does have inescapable philosophical connotations that are not dissimilar to the ideas of cosmic interconnectedness found in quantum non-locality back to the moment of the Big Bang itself - and the far more ancient hermetical idea that the macrocosm is duplicated perfectly in the microcosm. A hard idea to fathom, until you see such a perfect example in the Mandelbrot and Juliet sets.

Best to you for now -

I sit here laughing again at the "Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist as she "obfuses" away with commentary on the Uncertainity Principle, Chaos Theory, General Relativity and Albert Einstein but she still cannot come to grips with the simple "feems" (flaws, errors/"evangelizing", muck and stench) of Islam!!!! Whatever is she afraid of?????

Hamlet/Lear/Horatio/Kent

It's called "paranoia;" look it up. I guess I had a momentary touch of it.

I wasn't sure what you meant by that term "categorical imperative." I googled it, but I still wasn't quite sure what you meant.

I do not know much about Kant, but perhaps have picked up some of his thinking, second-hand, without realizing it.

Wiglaf,

Welcome. Welcome for as long as it lasts. We know how that great poem ends.

Hamlet, et al, on behalf of my person and that of Bewildful.

Dear HLHK and Bewildful,

Having given the matter a great deal of thought, I have decided to call myself Wiglaf, forgoing both Horatio and Hamlet, at least for the moment.

Thank you both, gentlepersons. for accepting me into your merry fellowship. You shall find me epically loyal.

Wiglaf
Language Sportsperson Fellow

Daniel - I think you've discovered the mythical realm, and I say that as a previously devoted student of Carl Jung. I relate to mythology at a deep level as many do - when I first read 'The Lord of the Rings' back in the 1960's, I was completely lost in the tale......my imagination was in overdrive.

As a child, tales from the British Isles set in the Middle Ages was enchanting unlike other fairy tales. I could experience it vividly, even at an early age. Of course this is commonplace with children, especially if they can find someone that will read to them!

For humans, this is a very real and time honored way to perceive the world - if scientists were entirely honest and even cared to think about it, they would admit that science is a kind of mythology, but with a very particular set of tasks, beliefs and strategies that have proven to be highly successful for the purposes intended.

But as to other forms of mythology, many people experience archetypal dreams as an example, and one wonders what the true natue of dreaming is to begin with! Who does it, where and in what space and time continuum do dreams occur, how and why are they created in the first place. Plenty of theories old and new - but no definitive answers.

We know that humans perceive the world in ways that are entirely unique to humans, when compared to the sensory experiences of other living creatures - we fabricate colors when colors are actually functions of differing wave lengths of light radiation along a spectrum of 'imaginary' colors - rods and cones on the retina create the perception of color (unless we have color deficits) and the brain sees green, red, yellow and so forth - but they are truly a figment of our perceptual/conceptual eye/brain functions - and with great relative value in our particular world.

Since I work with blind people on a daily basis, I'm well aware that they often perceive visual hallucinations of people, places and things that are actually functions of their visual disorder - but some believe they are becoming psychotic. Exactly how these hallucinations manifest and are tied to vision and eye pathology is as yet unexplained - brain function yes, but psychosis no.

And then you have to explore the phenomenon of memory, and how that ties to perception, and the great black hole of conciousness and the unknown opens wide.

Mary Cunningham seems not to realize that one man's soul is another man's rock and roll.

In the musical sense..and in the passionate sense too, most people would say they have soul. As an old jazz fan the better musicians played with soul, Coltrane, Miles, Monk,Charlie Parker.

But that doesn't have a goddam thing to do with the airy-fairy make believe BS about some part of ourselves flying off into the clouds while our body lies dead as a doornail under some truck somewhere.
Thats just piffle. In that sense, there is no soul.

Perspective,

I'm not thinking of Bohm. I'm thinking of Chaos Theory, which some argue has roots in Poincare. I don't know your background. There are some good technical introductions for physicists and mathematicians, a couple of decent introductions for laymen, Briggs for academics outside of the sciences.

Hamlet et al

This extract alone establishes the old guy as an atheist;

"Einstein consistently characterized the idea of a personal God who answers prayers as naive, and life after death as wishful thinking".

As your typical, common or garden atheist, that's exactly what I say too. To believe in a God is naive, and to actually expect or hope not to die is blatant wishful thinking.

We'll do anything to avoid facing the reality of our deaths, even deny it exists, and even invent a whole culture based on that fear. Many times over apparently. But as far as we actually know, death is just death. We are after all, just another animal amongst a lot of other animals.
We die like they die. Everything we know about the real world testifies to that.
All else is wishful thinking; because we don't want to face the 'elegant' truth - dead means dead.

DILTD,

Insult you? Are you kidding? Was there something I unwittingly said?

Essentially, what I thought you were referring to was Kantian idealism. Actually, whether you know it, as I surmised you do, or don't, your point is well made. If you aren't familiar with it, then you came upon it on your own, making you a hell of a lot smarter than most of us.

Why on earth would I want to insult you? I always look forward to reading your posts. You're a fellow poet for Gawd's sake.

HLHK

For Hamlet/Lear/Horatio/Kent

At first, I thought you were insulting me, but then you said, "thanks," so maybe you weren't.

So, you're welcome.

JIHADIST - I appreciate your appreciation! One of humanity's most profound insights into the nature of reality comes from Buddhism (in my opinion of course). Without further ado, I offer the Dalai Lama's disposition of the concept of Sunyata, or Emptiness, a concept developed at great length by Nagarjuna in the 3rd century C.E.

It is said that to grasp the essence of this concept is to perceive the fundamental nature of reality - and most Buddhists do not. It is fair to say, the Sufis strove to achieve this same insight - perhaps this is the bridge to God and at the same time, the road to Nothingness.

"One of the most important philosophical insights in Buddhism comes from what is known as the theory of emptiness. At its heart is the deep recognition that there is a fundamental disparity between the way we perceive the world, including our own experience in it, and the way things actually are. In our day-to-day experience, we tend to relate to the world and to ourselves as if these entities possessed self-enclosed, definable, discrete and enduring reality.

For instance, if we examine our own conception of selfhood, we will find that we tend to believe in the presence of an essential core to our being, which characterises our individuality and identity as a discrete ego, independent of the physical and mental elements that constitute our existence.

The philosophy of emptiness reveals that this is not only a fundamental error but also the basis for attachment, clinging and the development of our numerous prejudices. According to the theory of emptiness, any belief in an objective reality grounded in the assumption of intrinsic, independent existence is simply untenable.

All things and events, whether ‘material’, mental or even abstract concepts like time, are devoid of objective, independent existence. To intrinsically possess such independent existence would imply that all things and events are somehow complete unto themselves and are therefore entirely self-contained. This would mean that nothing has the capacity to interact with or exert influence on any other phenomena.

But we know that there is cause and effect – turn a key in a car, the starter motor turns the engine over, spark plugs ignite and fuel begins to burn. Yet in a universe of self-contained, inherently existing things, these events could never occur! So effectively, the notion of intrinsic existence is incompatible with causation; this is because causation implies contingency and dependence, while anything that inherently existed would be immutable and self-enclosed.

In the theory of emptiness, everything is argued as merely being composed of dependently related events; of continuously interacting phenomena with no fixed, immutable essence, which are themselves in dynamic and constantly changing relations. Thus, things and events are 'empty' in that they can never possess any immutable essence, intrinsic reality or absolute ‘being’ that affords independence."

E FAVORITE - I will check out that link. Near death experiences have much in common.........

HAMLET - indeed, complexity theory says the new emerges from the old in unpredictable and often surprising ways! As physicist David Bohm would explain, the explicate order emerges from the implicate order continuously and (as far as we know) for all eternity - see 'Wholeness and the Implicate Order'.

Jihadist;

Seems like you missed the article in question which you can read in full at may19. 4;47pm.above.

Here's a slice...

Einstein, as he says in his autobiographical notes, lost his religion at the age of 12, concluding that it was all a lie, and he never looked back. But he never lost his religious feeling about the apparent order of the universe or his intuitive connection with its mystery, which he savored. “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is its comprehensibility,” he once said.

“If something is in me that can be called religious,” he wrote in another letter, in 1954, “then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as science can reveal it.”

Einstein consistently characterized the idea of a personal God who answers prayers as naive, and life after death as wishful thinking. But his continual references to God — as a metaphor for physical law; in his famous rebuke to quantum mechanics, “God doesn’t play dice”; and in lines like the endlessly repeated, “ Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind” — has led some wishful thinkers to try to put him in the camp of some kind of believer or even, not long ago, to paint him as an advocate of intelligent design.

Trying to distinguish between a personal God and a more cosmic force, Einstein described himself as an “agnostic” and “not an atheist,” which he associated with the same intolerance as religious fanatics. “They are creatures who — in their grudge against the traditional ‘opium for the people’ — cannot bear the music of the spheres.”

The problem of God, he said, “is too vast for our limited mind.

Pretty clear which camp he's in.

Chaos Theory means something very specific in science and has been applied with varying degrees of rigor in some disciplines, most successfully, perhaps in postmodern interdisciplinary studies. It holds out considerable promise.

It is dense and difficult.

Kantain categorical thinking, notwithstanding, DITLD, we've come a long way in some domains. The Categorical Imperative is not one of them. Your point, though, is well taken. Thanks.

Chaos Theory means something very specific in science and has been applied with varying degrees of rigor in some disciplines, most successfully, perhaps in postmodern interdisciplinary studies. It holds out considerable promise.

It is dense and difficult.

Kantain categorical thinking, notwithstanding, DITLD, we've come a long way in some domains. The Categorical Imperative is not one of them. Your point, though, is well taken. Thanks.

Einstein saw that religion was untrue at the age of twelve. Even at twelve he saw through it all.

Spiderman is fourteen and he still doesn't get it.

Perspective - regarding your blocked posts - are you using internet links? that might be the problem.

Drop them and see what happens.

Oops! Sorry Andrew,

Before I go, thanks for your post, but I have to be brief.

It would seem that Einstein is ambigious enough on his statements on God to be claimed by both believers and non-belivers. He seems deistic or agnostic for some, and is not for organised religions or rites.

No doubt Einstein thinks outside the box and expanded our knowledge. But to argue as to whether he believe in God or otherwise does not and should not subsume his achievements in human knowledge.

As for my post on "chaos theory", that can also be applied to politics, economics and organised/institutionalised religions. Orgins of chaos are hard to identify until it becomes a tsunami. And harder to control or undo.:)

Got to go and cheers
"J"

The recent "Anonymous" was me.

Even if certain “liberal” brands of religion aren’t exactly “frozen in place”, they are still tied to myths and dogma that they have to maneuver around, lest they upset the long established balance of political and corporate power of their religion.

Maybe someday, we’ll get to a concept of religion - perhaps the one true religion - that is what humans have always been capable of experiencing, despite the various cultural boxes we’ve put religion in over the centuries.

For Perspective

I feel that it is laid out here, perfectly clear, a world for us to make our way in, and to navigate through, to live in and experience. Most everyday type things, are easy to understand. We have a sort of inborn knowledge of how the world works and how it's all put together.

By way of our senses, we, like the animals, can focus a picture of this world, which I call our landscape, and it seems clear, and purposeful, complete, and seamless. Somehow, it is all focused a little more intensely, and with greater clarity in us than it is in the animals, and this focused clarity of this landscape, and our awareness of it, and our contemplation of it, this is our consciousness.

Conscsiousness is a consciousness of what? Of impressions, but of what? of order, but of what order? the order of existence, which enables our perceptions and experiences.

For the order of the universe waits; it waits for what? it waits for us to be aware of it; it waits for some consciousness, upon which to impress itself. The order of the universe is the template, a template, from which our consiousness is impressed.

In a sense, this is a very thin way to think, with no philosophical or religious depth at all. I think there is no design in the universe, that we can ever be sure of, because we do not have the capacity to comprehend such things; we have been granted the capacity to comprehend our landscape, where we have been placed, to dwell, although we are able to be curious, about a little bit more.

Most present day organized religions are cast in metaphors of human existence. We do not worship stone idols anymore, but worshipping Gods very simply in human metaphors is not much different.

What is really go on? It is far more fantastic than the mere metaphors of human religion. I do not think any human being can ever understand. I do not think that anything will be clearer, down the road.

I think that this thing, that we are mixed up in, life, with all its impressions of order, experiences, perceptions, and inheritance of culture and customs, and what all of it, and any of it means, is actually pretty weird.

Josh:

Re: Your last two posts

Sternly put, but true. The irony is that so many on the left fail to question the ways in which they are ideological pawns, servants of horrific larger interests.

Marxist Theory 101 + a tad of "Neo-Liberal" geopolitics, "globalization" (neither one really necessary, since, in some ways, we are not far removed from the mid-nineteenth century with respect to socioeconomic consciousness)

As for me, in my youth, I was held captive (literally) by Christianity, but I was never either an idiot or an opium addict.

posting are blocked - sorry.

Oh. Someone brings in chaos theory here now.

Chaos theory indeed. On effects out of proportion of their causes.

Should be applied to the study of atheists as a "phenomena" (in On Faith blogs) - the flapping of the wings of a butterfly (no God) setting in motion forces that result in a hurricane in another continent (religion poisons everything and belief in God is a delusion). With apologies to Mr. Edward Lorenz for that very loose interpretation and irreverent application of his chaos theory.

But, or course, there is strange attractors, you know, random behavior of atheists that almost but never quite repeats itself - you know being irregular and of nonintegral dimension (on secular state, on seperation of church and state, on eliminating or not all beliefs). Then there is the self-similarity where patterns repeats but in different scales, doubling when a small change in force driving a pendulum increase its frequency (reactions to Spidey?)

Of course chaos theory is speculative and not quite mathematically rigorous and thus unreliable. But hey, it still has its possibilities and uses in controlling possible sources of chaos.

Okay, I'm done with my off the wall bit for all believers here today in this "atheist blog". Have fun.

Cheers
"J"

Jihadist;

I believe atheists are pleased with Einstein for being the wonderful human being that he was, for being so 'brainy' and decent and honest and open and compassionate and humble; and we are delighted that he didn't believe in the supernatural. That would have been such a let down for the rational set.

We admire greatly those able to cut through the nonsense and follow evidence as far as possible no matter where it leads; and to draw conclusions about things based on reason and evidence.
Faith had even been part of the equation when Newton was asking the same questions; religion in his day being all enveloping. But not with Einstein. He got outside of that box totally.

Einstein sought the answers to the great mysteries of life. Religion has always claimed to have most (if not all) of the answers to these great mysteries.
He and the Church, you might say, were fighting over the same turf. Einstein (like Darwin before him) did not want to disturb religion, particularly, and his nonbelief was low-key and understated except in private,apparently.
And now another letter has shown up which clearly shows the great man was an atheist.
Einstein is obviously exceptionally influential even in death. Look at us here right now, arguing over him. And someone just paid $400,000 for a letter he wrote expressing some of his views on religion. I'm glad the Church didn't get their hands on it. If they had we'd never see it again.

Of course atheists want him in their corner. We need all the help we can get. We believe religion to be heavy duty baggage we've dragged in from the dark ages, and which makes no more sense - in this modern world - than astrology. And Einstein is a coup for that kind of thinking. A victory, you might say, for reason over dogma.

Perspective writes:

Down the road, we may found that the spiritualists and non-materialists were right all along - but religion is still another matter. To my way of thinking, religion is frozen in place, while reality is ever fresh, and ever on the move. We have not captured it, and we're still very far from knowing what it is. But is some mysterious way, we are it.

Absolutely. "WE may find" suggests a post-medieval worldview, much like Hamlet's. We may find does not mean we will seek verification for biblical pronouncements as Christian scholasticism did an an age darker, in some ways, than ours.

Jihadist,

Profound thanks for your kind words about me.

Arminius

Perspective,

Well, now we have Chaos Theory. Sort of changes things a bit, doesn't it?

HLHK
Formerly M. Anonymous

Perspective – read this NYT article. Also Google "stroke of insight" "Jill bolte taylor" to hear her video. I think you’ll find it very interesting, in relation to your thoughts about consciousness and brain function.

NY Times, March 13, 2008, 9:26 am
When a Brain Scientist Suffers a Stroke

As a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist, Jill Bolte Taylor has always known more about brains than most people. But when a brain hemorrhage triggered her own stroke, she suddenly had a front-row seat on the deterioration of the brain.

Dr. Taylor recounts the details of her stroke and the amazing insights she gained from it in a riveting 18-minute video of her speech at the Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference in Monterey, Calif., last month. Her fascinating lecture includes a detailed explanation of the differences between the left and right sides of the brain, complete with an incredibly cool prop — a real human brain.

On a December morning in 1996, Dr. Taylor woke up with searing pain behind her left eye, the beginnings of a hemorrhagic stroke. As the left side of her brain shut down, she began to feel disconnected from her body and entered an almost-euphoric like state. It took her a while to make sense of the experience, but as her right arm became paralyzed, it dawned on her that she was having a stroke.

“How many brain scientists have the opportunity to study their own brain from the inside out?,'’ she said. “In the course of four hours, I watched my brain completely deteriorate in its ability to process all information. On the morning of the hemorrhage, I could not walk, talk, read, write or recall any of my life.'’

Her account of the experience of stroke is vivid, and at one point, she recalled, she felt like someone had taken a remote control and hit the mute button. “I was shocked to find myself inside a silent mind,'’ she said.

What is so surprising about Dr. Taylor’s story is that she experienced a sort of euphoria as she was left with only right-brain functions. She lost her sense of self, but she also shed the stress of her life and, as she puts it, “37 years of emotional baggage.'’

“Imagine what it would be like to be totally disconnected from your brain chatter,'’ she said. “I felt a sense of peacefulness.'’

Dr. Taylor’s lecture is challenging and thought-provoking, and I’d encourage you to take the time to watch it in its entirety. It took Dr. Taylor eight years to recover from the stroke, but she said she was motivated by a desire to share her experience of stroke and recovery, particularly her increased awareness of the right side of her brain. “I realized what a tremendous gift this experience could be, what a stroke of insight this could be to how we live our lives, and it motivated me to recover,'’ she said.

RE: Qu'ran translation (my previous post)

My point with respect to translation is that the while the word Jerusalem (Yerusaem) does not appear in the Arabic, it appears quite frequently in translation.

To the best of my knowledge, this, and its geoopolitical import has not been reported in the Times, WST, WaPo, etc., by MSNBC, CNN, etc. Neither have their oil holdings, multi-coporate interests, interests in Middle Eastern markets, media, etc.

Merry's post is a good start.

Mr Mark,

Your analysis and summary of the Great Albert's thoughts was well done. But your naming Spidey an 'ass' did fall far short of the mark.

Arminius

Spidey,

Here's a link for you: the song, 'Who Would Jesus Bomb?'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9XYFp3xLyg

Note: anyone else is welcome to listen to this too.

Arminius

Given my years of physics training and my extensive reading of Einstein's philosophical works, I can confirm absolutely: Spiderman2 IS an ass.

Ender wrote:

And with Islam, it has had the built in tribal bent toward Saudi Arabia. The Koran declares that is should not be translated into any other language that Arabic, and that the Great Caliphate should come from one of the Rulers of an Arabian Country. As long as Saudi holds Islam's greatest shrine hostage along with the access for the required pilgramage, it is in the front running. The creators of the koran were as careful as the 300-400 yrs where christians scripted and rehashed the text that became the bible. Both very carefully protected their priesthoods and bestowed them with spiritual superiority and secular power.

Saudi denies support for al queada, but the Wahabi Mullahs are the religious arm of the ruling family that teach their fundamentalist and tribal version while funding al queada and maitaining unrest throughout the middle east.

While I often put much blame on Israel for inciting unrest, Saudi wants all of the rest of the mideast more concerned with each other and Israel than the Saudis own corrupt and decadent tribal rulers who seek to extend their rule across all of Islam.

As usual, regardless of whether any of the prophets of the Cults of Abraham existed, the religious decendants are all designed to be tools of whichever political partner will make life easiest for it's priesthood, while making life as difficult as possible for it's detractors.

Actually, no other religions show the serious consideration of creating political alliances as do the Cults of Abraham, and that is reflected in their long term 'success', or at least survival.
.............................................
Much of what you say in your first paragraph is correct. However it overlooks the the role played by the Anglo-Christians (England and the US) in establishing the current nation state catastrophe of Saudi Arabia. This was done, at the time, primarily to protect the interests of British Petroleum and the rapidly growing US oil industry. The Wahabis provide material and financial support for Al Quaeda. This is no secret. It has been published in journals, newspapers, etc. They also allow extremism and Madrassahs within their own borders. They, do, however, pay the price from time to time with their terrorist attacks on their own soil.

My comment was in response to Merry's fuller treatment, which is absolutely spot on. "To often blame Israel" is to accept oil ideology. There is much more to be said on that matter, and, frankly, I don't have time right now.

I will say this. Despite the injunction against translating the Quoran, it has been translated. The word Jerusalem does not appear any where in the Arabic as Farnaz pointed out, Merry, as well. I researched this and found it to be the case.

Interestingly, Christians know the directions Muslims face when praying? To which city do Jews face? How many times is the word Jerusalem mentioned in the Hebrew Bible?

Blaming Jews and blaming Israel is a Christian pastime. It allows for Christians to ignore the fact of persons like Farnaz, one of three million Middle EAstern Jews living in exile, a number of them victims of torture, whilst the US and British Petroleum persue their despicable agendas. The good news is that Depts. of Mid-East Study, at Georgetown, for e.g., are watching the renamed BP, like hawks.

Blaming Israel, watching TV news, reading the Times and Wall STreet Journal, never considering transnational interests, media ownership, etc., makes it easy to pick a historical scapegoat.

The reasons for unrest? REad Merry's post to begin with. AS for this "Abrahamic" business, this is a Vatican invention. Not being a papist, it holds no interest for me.

Josh

Hello Perspective :)

Very apt handle you're using. And thanks for your post and points there.

Thanks for reminding on Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, indeterminacy principle. Disputed as a violation of cause and effect when first broached by him.

Related to that oft-repeated quote by Einstein that "God does not plays dice". I believe Stephen W Hawkings said, "God not only plays dice, He also sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen." I hope I remember that quote in toto correctly.

By Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, it does change physics - the universe as no longer fully predictable. Einstein, in saying, "God does not play dice" was not quite successful in reconciling it with classical mechanical theory.

We don't have to go into precise position and momentum of a subatomic particle, or such as calculating a particle's position, or that the more precisely one variable is measured, the more imprecise the other becomes. Nor do we really want to get into Niels Bohr's correspondence principle. This is not a quantum physics blog.

Regards
"J"

Daniel, I'm in agreement with you. We really know very little about the essential nature of consciousness, but in recent years it's become a hot area of research. All things are possible...

If we could place ourselves as observers in a 'virtual' laboratory where time and space have no currency, we'd probably find that the phenomenon of thought as the driving force behind all of our actions has no substance whatsoever, and yet what is more real??

Of course it appears to be inseparable from brain functions, but is consciousness an epiphenomenon which is dependent on brain functions, or visa versa?? There are theories that cut both ways.

While materialists would like to believe that consciousness and it's non-tangible by-products are based in biochemistry and neurology, these may be the material receptors of higher non-physical functions.

Down the road, we may found that the spiritualists and non-materialists were right all along - but religion is still another matter. To my way of thinking, religion is frozen in place, while reality is ever fresh, and ever on the move. We have not captured it, and we're still very far from knowing what it is. But is some mysterious way, we are it.

Nic Brady : "I might add to my previous post...that Jihadist and Mary Cunningham both illustrate my point."

Thanks and very sweet. I appreaciate you putting Mary Cunningham in the same category as me. As a matter of fact, I'd love being in a foxhole with Mary Cunningham. She'd shared with me her knowledge on history and literature, especially poetry. She'd let me say my private prayers so I will go to my end in peace and with grace. No screaming from her about praying in the "public square" that is a shared foxhole. Not yelling from her that I am being deluded and all that.

Of course, if Spidey is in the same foxhole, he would probably be saying "I told you so!" about "the end" he's been reminding us about. Of course Thomas Baum would be the most calm as he has been reminding us to "be ready", and he is the most ready.

Of course, some atheists would blame us religionists for causing all that causes us to end in the foxhole. Concy would probably be making last minute attempts to "deborn, debred and debrainwash" us religionists with his Five Step Programme.

Certainly, it would be good to have Mr. Mark and Gerry in the foxhole. We can try to persuade them to play Mozart's Requiem or Masonic Funeral Music. If that is too morbid for anyone's taste, perhaps Debussy's "Claire De Lune". Or better still, to let them decide together. Just some background music to calm us all while we pray and wait for our end in the foxhole. Or those who don't believe, to meditate or ruminate.

Of course, going by "expectations", I would probably put myself in front of an incoming missile so I will be an martyr and go up to heaven for the "72 virgins" and save all others in the foxhole.

Cheers
"J"

I can think of several times when my life lacked purpose: I didn't know what to do with myself, or couldn't convince anyone to let me do what I wanted to do, or I'd try and fail.

Eventually though, something would work. I'd get motivated, get lucky or get noticed. When I was a believer, I’d occasionally make a plea to God, in the form of something like, “Oh please Dear God, let this work out.” However, regardless of the outcome, I didn’t give God any credit or blame. It just didn’t make sense to me that God would get that involved in the life of one of his creatures, especially one who was already pretty well off, compared to the other poor souls out there, born into terrible circumstances – poor, sick, loveless and with limited opportunity.

Jihadist - if you don't mind my interjecting, Einsein fell short when he refused to accept the strange and peculiar tenets of Heisenberg's Uncertainly Principle in the then new area of quantum physics, and the proposed laws that govern the sub-atomic world of particles and waves (which are thus far 100% accurate and never disproven).

And so his famous saying in a fit of irritation, 'God doesn't play dice with the universe' even though he didn't exactly believe in God, as we see in his letters. He did believe in a predictable and orderly universe however, and quantum physics gave the boot to invariable predictability. While variations can be great at the sub-quantum level, the laws of Newton and Einstein seem intact at the macro-level......it's a conundrum.

Even today, physicists are trying to find a way to unite the laws of Einstein's relativistic macro-world with the laws of Heisenberg's uncertain quantum micro-world - e.g. the grand unified theory of all things.

I do respect Einstein for his conjecture that God is beyond human comprehension, however - we are still a relatively young race, with much to learn and much more to discover. Why would we think we've reached the end of the road quite so soon??

Jeez, where is Chris Everett when you need him??

Dear Perspective

I am not a literary critic, or anything like that, nor a real philosopher, either. But I think your poem is very good, because it has done what I have been trying and trying to do, encapsulated complicated ideas in simple words. You should save it; I think it could be worth publishing, although, I have no clue how to go about that. I would like to save it on my c: drive, to re-read it over a few times.

This part rung in my ear, with special clarity:

"When the dust finally settled, we found earth as our home
Where the antelope play and the buffalo roam,
And something from nothing is a thought now corrected
A theorem based mainly on the view we selected"

This is a poetic summary of my thoughts that we have been set upon the earth in a "landscape" of experience, which we perceive with senses, evolved from the lower animals, for the purpose of navigating this landscape, and that there is no design to things that we can be sure of, not even any laws of nature nor any laws of science nor of physics, but only our imaginary book-keeping devices, that help us keep track of perceptions and impressions of the world.

I hope you do not mind that I am picking it apart and analyzing it.

Dear Spidey -

The Einstein letter in question has been long authenticated. There's no question whatsoever that it is from his hand. Had you bothered to do even a cursory bit of research (rather than shooting from your usual fear-laden and truth-bereft religious BS) you would have found out the truth. To whit:

"Einstein penned the letter on January 3 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind who had sent him a copy of his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt. THE LETTER WENT ON PUBLIC SALE A YEAR LATER AND HAS REMAINED IN PRIVATE HANDS EVER SINCE.

"In the letter, he states: "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."

from The Guardian website

So, we know THE EXACT DATE Einstein wrote the letter, who he wrote it to and what he was responding to. We also know that the letter went on PUBLIC AUCTION in 1954.

Yep, sounds like a stupid forgery to me.

But then, facing the truth is something you're not really interested in, is it?

That leaves Spidey only one route: to declare that Einstein was also an idiot.

You're an absolute ass, Spidey...and one need not be an Einstein to know THAT little fact.

What a drag it is to click onto this thread and see the dreaded name spiderman2 appear before me.

Andrew was a lot luckier than I.

Spidey, I read your drivel and it's embarrassing. Folks will think all Christians are really dumb people. There must be something else you can do.Read a book or something. Anything but the Bible.
Try Matt Ridley. Seriously. You'll learn a whole lot about how dirt turns into brains over billions of years, and many other exciting things, in good plane English,and bite-sized chapters. Check your library.

Thank you Daniel - I composed it at my desk this morning. I'm trying to find a genre for it - although it does have has a Zen twist at the end. The philosophy of no philosophy, and a position I have a real affinity for....

Andrew,

Ah, an Einsteinite! Let's get out of orbit, offline, offbase, off the wall and all that.

Is is fair for anyone to have an argument with Einstein now that he's dead? You do realise not all his works are perfect, including his some of his physics. You do know what those are if you're into Einstein.

We'd rather argue with you than with Einstein. Surely you are not quoting Einstein as the the one and only neo Infallible One?

Well, Einstein came out with the General Theory of Relativity that the universe is expanding, but revised it to be cosmological constant thus the universe is static. He changed it as to say the universe is expanding sounds outrageous at the time. Hubble look up the scope, saw and said the universe is expanding. Einstein called his cosmological constant thing his greatest mistake.

And the moral of the story : Even Einstein can make mistakes. And best of all, he admits to it. Unlike some Lay Einsteinites who thinks and treats him as the Infallible One or a Science God.

On the Theory of Relavity, Einstein also charmingly explained it as something like this:

"If you sit on a hot stove for one minute, it seems like an hour. If you sit with a beautiful girl for one hour, it seems like a minute."

Anyone tested that before literally for empirical evidence? Or does that requires some form of understanding of allusive, analogical, metaphorical language and such? Or that it is so silly for anyone not to understand anything that can't be touched and seen, but only to be understood?

Nobody said Einstein has a "vision" on the human human condition or conflict, poverty, illiteracy, disease. I'd say Thomas Alva Edison made more direct and tangible contributions in making human life easier with his inventions than Einstein with his theories. Or for that matter, doctors, biologists, biochemists, engineers etc.

Don't forget some of Edison's inventions made possible the facilitation in proving Einstein's theories. Like Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci was called a "visionary" too? Da Vinci drew something like a chopper or flying machine.

So, for a fellow like Einstein who doth talks up unproven ideas as theories, he's a "visionary". Sounds like "prophesy". I must say Arthur C Clarke is more "visionary" if we are going to go by what he wrote and which some subsequently becomes reality in science. Only thing, he call his stuff, "science fiction", not "science theories" until it happened and he's called a "visionary".

And is it not the norm to apply "visionaries" and "prophets" to people who actually act up on their "visions" in the community, in society? Unless you mean a "visionary" as someone who got a glimpse of something, a vision thing.

We religionists calls it divine inspiration or divine revelation as creatures of creation from the same cosmic cauldron and soup that created the still stirring universe and all life in it.

As for looking up and above and beyond, better to look at the works of people from Nicholas Copernicus to Galileo Galilei to Isaac Newton to Edmond Halley to William Herschel to Joseph Von Fraunhofer to William Huggins to Ejnar Hertzsprung to Arthur Eddington to Harlow Shapley to Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin to Edwin Hubble to George Lemaitre to Karl Jansky to Fred Hoyle to Fred Whipple to Arno Penzias.

.....and they all open up the sky and offered a glimpse of the universe for us to wonder at the process of creation and ongoing life and death of the stars too.

Oh, all right then. Einstein gave many inspiration too, as the stereotype of the rumpled looking, wild haired, seemingly absent-minded scientist in popular culture.

As my friend Mr. Thomas Baum likes to remind, be prepared, be ready. For possibly the Big Crunch too. You know, from Big Bang that starts from the Singularity, the universe expanding, and then to the Big Crunch as a reverse process - the endpoint of infinite density, the Omega Point, reached and the expanding universe collapsed back to a single point.

Of course, one could die in a big crunch that is a road accident. Or die bed of old age and peacefully as the end of life of life we know it.

Oh yes, Einstein also offered opinions on God, religion and the Bible. Out of his field of physics. That is why he always cop out of the certainty in saying there is no God as some posited and insisted. God “is too vast for our limited minds” as he stated. It is a "problem" for scientists to "unravel" still in understanding the earth and universe bit by bit by bit by bit.

Cheers
"J"

I might add to my previous post...that Jihadist and Mary Cunningham both illustrate my point.

If each was of the other's religion it would be quite surprising. Both conform predictably to the beliefs of their environments.

Perspective

I posted a comment about your poem, but it was blocked, so here I go again.

I notice now that it is in quotes. Did you write it? It is wonderful. It very beautifully describes alot of what I believe.

Did you write it? If not, who did? Where did it come from?

Andrew wrote "What a pleasure to click onto this thread and be met by an article on Einstein; his opinion of gods, religion and that quaint olde book the bible"

I've read all the popular quotes of Einstein and it seems he's a believer and NOT an atheist. People who want to portray him as atheist are either idiots or liars.

I have a strong feeling, this "new" letter from Einstein is a fake. It's either Einstein is an idiot or somebody lied. It's more believable that somebody lied.

"God does not play dice with creating the universe" (Albert Einstein)

REading comprehension disorder is what ateist should worry about. They can't understand anything like the bible and even a single staement like that of Einstein. FOOLS says the Lord of them.

And don't bunch me with other "religious" here like Baum. These people are as idiotic as the atheists.

Curious believers. Isn't that technically a contradiction in terms? Isn't it the atheists who are the curious? And isn't that how they became atheists anyway? (Saying things like,'Mmm that doesn't sound right to me)

Of course, a religious person can be curious about many things; but not about creation, existence, and the big question - What's it all about?

They've been told the answers to those questions already; and those answers will depend on where they were born and what religion they were raised to believe in, and will have nothing to do with truth, and everything to do with local myth, custom and tradition.

I have always found it ironic when someone like Mary Cunningham uses the Shakespeare quotation, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy," to promote their own superstitions, especially in the face of scientific fact.

Superstition is the thing "dreamt of," not science. Science is the thing we are COMPELLED to believe when we apply reason to evidence. In fact, this is exactly the point Hamlet is making. The ghost appears - there's no denying it. It's evidence, so the reasoned response is to abandon previous notions of what you think the world SHOULD BE and accept how it IS.

To illustrate, let's look at the lines immediately preceding the quotation. In fact, let's imagine that Horatio is really Mary Cunningham, that Hamlet is really Mr. Mark, and that they have just taken measurements of, say, the cosmic microwave background radiation:

HORATIO
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

HAMLET
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

What a pleasure to click onto this thread and be met by an article on Einstein; his opinion of gods, religion and that quaint olde book the bible.

This is where christians look the other way in case their faith suffers agonizing shivers of doubt.
This is where Mary Cunningam's curiosity draws the line. (She claims to be curious in an earlier post).

Will 'curious' believers consider even for a moment, the possibility that Einstein was correct - god merely a metaphor and the bible just primitve nonsense and wishful thinking?

Surely mature individuals with real intellectual curiosity will be interested by what this great thinker had to say on matters of such great import. His opinion really does count. He was no ordinary man.

And who you gonna agree with? Einstein or Spidey?
Einstein or Thomas Paul Moses Baum? Einstein or Jihadist? Einstein Or Jacob Josesv?
Who has greater curiosity, vision, and insight into the bigger picture, Einstein or Mary Cunningam?
Ah Einstein, we hardly knew ye.

Mary C writes:

"Mr Mark

"You misunderstood--as you often do. My second objection to atheism was its view of life as an accident, the result of successive random mutations and the survival of the fittest (or least unfit, either way both are tautologies.)"

That's a lame description of both atheism and - by extension - evolutionary science. As before, I recommend you read a reputable source on evolution. Your lack of knowledge is appalling and embarrassing.

Mary wrote a poem that contained these lines:

"“Life just evolved”, although sincere,
Can’t be the _reason_ we are here."

She then wrote,

"I'm not looking for a reason for our existence, only objecting to the atheist answer of a process in lieu of a cause."

I guess I'm missing your point. Your two statements contradict each other. It sure sounds to me that you believe we're here "for a reason."

"From the grave, Albert Einstein poured gasoline on the culture wars between science and religion this week.

A letter the physicist wrote in 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, in which he described the Bible as “pretty childish” and scoffed at the notion that the Jews could be a “chosen people,” sold for $404,000 at an auction in London. That was 25 times the presale estimate.

The Associated Press quoted Rupert Powell, the managing director of Bloomsbury Auctions, as describing the unidentified buyer as having “a passion for theoretical physics and all that that entails.” Among the unsuccessful bidders, according to The Guardian newspaper, was Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, an outspoken atheist.

The price makes the Gutkind letter one of the best sellers among Einstein manuscripts. That $404,000 is only a little less than the $442,500 paid for the entire collection of 53 love letters between Einstein and his first wife, Mileva Maric, at an auction at Christie’s in New York in 1996. At that same auction a paper by Einstein and his best friend, Michele Besso, attempting a calculation that would later be a pivotal piece of his crowning achievement, the General Theory of Relativity, went for $398,500.

Diana L. Kormos-Buchwald, a historian at the California Institute of Technology and head of the Einstein Papers project, said she was not surprised that the Gutkind letter, which was known to Einstein scholars, fetched such a high price.

“It is an important expression of Einstein’s thoughts and views on religion, on Judaism, on his views about God and religious texts,” she wrote in an e-mail message. She said the letter, which was not written for publication, was “concise and unvarnished” and more straightforward than the metaphors he usually turned to in public.

Gerald Holton, a historian of science at Harvard and a longtime Einstein expert, also was not surprised. He said Einstein’s marketability had been improved by the last few years of hoopla about the 100th anniversary of relativity, which included his selection as Time magazine’s Man of the Century in 2000, and several new biographies. Dr. Holton described the letter as “a feat of eloquent Credo in short form.”

Einstein, as he says in his autobiographical notes, lost his religion at the age of 12, concluding that it was all a lie, and he never looked back. But he never lost his religious feeling about the apparent order of the universe or his intuitive connection with its mystery, which he savored. “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is its comprehensibility,” he once said.

“If something is in me that can be called religious,” he wrote in another letter, in 1954, “then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as science can reveal it.”

Einstein consistently characterized the idea of a personal God who answers prayers as naive, and life after death as wishful thinking. But his continual references to God — as a metaphor for physical law; in his famous rebuke to quantum mechanics, “God doesn’t play dice”; and in lines like the endlessly repeated, “ Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind” — has led some wishful thinkers to try to put him in the camp of some kind of believer or even, not long ago, to paint him as an advocate of intelligent design.

Trying to distinguish between a personal God and a more cosmic force, Einstein described himself as an “agnostic” and “not an atheist,” which he associated with the same intolerance as religious fanatics. “They are creatures who — in their grudge against the traditional ‘opium for the people’ — cannot bear the music of the spheres.”

The problem of God, he said, “is too vast for our limited minds.”

Einstein’s latest words offer scant comfort to the traditionally faithful.

In the letter, according to the A.P. account, he wrote that “the word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.”

As for his fellow Jews, he said that Judaism, like all other religions, was “an incarnation of the most childish superstitions.”

He claimed a deep affinity with the Jewish people, he said, but “as far as my experience goes they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”

MARYC,

There are plenty of believers who accept the conclusions of science re: the Big Bang and evolution, just as there are many scientists who accept that a deity was the prime mover of creation. They just don’t accept a literalist Biblical view the contradicts the scientific evidence. There is nothing fundamental in science that rules out the divine, however science does rule out a literalist interpretations of the Bible and other religious texts that do not meet the standard of fitting observable evidence.

Science is a method of learning about the world. It isn’t a belief or a religion it is a tool, nothing more. It is a tool that cuts though illusion and fantasy like a knife, however, and that includes religious belief that does not meet the test of evidence.

Mary Cunningham,

In your poem, you said"

"You could not answer question one:
How something did of nothing come."

Perhaps I am a little late on this, since it has been kicked around a little, already.

I am not writing with the point of view of promoting atheism or of picking on religion or Catholicism. I am just curious and seeking to understand.

But I would like to point out once again, that an atheist is someone who does not believe in God. Not having an alternate explanation for things is not a relevant point when it comes to criticising atheists. Also, evolution is not atheistic, it is scientific. Atheism and evolution do not go together. One means "not believing in God" and the other is a scientific consensus on the developemnt of life into its various present forms.

Also, there are no exlanations, either atheistic, Christian, Islamic, nor any other ism, which describe ultimately how something came from nothing. So, again, it is not relevant to point out that this is a flaw in atheistic thinking, when all other traditions, beliefs, and faiths, reach back into a fog of antiquity, where something, however obscured, still must be, but for which there is no explantion.

What you to believe to be an explanation of the "beginning" does not satisfy curiousty for what happened before the "beginning" and what you believe to be an explanation of the "beginning" could be seen just as easily by others as but a single link in the chain of an unlimted, unknown and unkowable past.

Something from What?

“So what is this stuff that’s seen all around?
So firm, so full, so atomically-bound
A gift from God, the pious would say
Divine contrivance, every step of the way
But does that really quench the thirst of the curious?
A far-fetched proposal that may even be spurious

So science must ask without apology or reserve
Does religion really preach the ontology we deserve?
Yes, physics has quite a different world view
Something quite old and something brand new
Where every article hanging in space
Is seen to be particles, each in their place
And every particle a wave to be sure
Until such a time as we seek to ensure
That the stuff we perceive now closely examined
Are not figments of thought that the faithful imagined

So in viewing Nature’s singular cosmic design
We begin to believe that Nature’s Way is just fine
When the dust finally settled, we found earth as our home
Where the antelope play and the buffalo roam,
And something from nothing is a thought now corrected
A theorem based mainly on the view we selected

The things that were not and are now plainly real
Will soon quickly fade, that’s part of the deal
So pray if you must, and find God if you can
As for me I’ll just sit here, that’s all I’ve got planned.”

Just so you wonderful examples of rightwing christianity know, it was not atheist or any other religion that made me realize the negative impact on society inherant in it's precepts, but the actions, intollerance and disrepect and general hatred of the (nonwhite-nonchristian)human race that made me recognize that all pieces of the Cults of Abraham are creations of man, and if of a god it is one that truly hates mankind.

Gerry:
Mr. Mark,

"I have never felt a lack of "purpose" in my life. There always was a purpose, both for myself and for others."

Nor have I. We create our own purpose. We do not have to have it imposed upon us. Most of the limited circle of non-religionists I know are more tolerant and generous than the believers, but then it isn’t surprising given that we are only concerned with this world and therefore feel an obligation to our fellow human beings rather than to some remote authority who promises things will be OK…someday.

My last response:

Everything is everything. If you want to call every conceivable thing (time, matter, the universe) god - fine with me. Only: It melts down to a mere semantic question.

And it has nothing to do with any conceivable religion (starting with Christianity) with its reduction to the most modest thinking capacity of the biggest possible number of people.

Spidey,

Here's a link for you: the song, 'Who Would Jesus Bomb?'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9XYFp3xLyg

Gerry, I'm not going to fight. Yet there is a carefully choreographied element to your protests, Gerry. Why are you protesting when atheists--themselves!--say they have no soul, that there is no such thing?

The choreography of victimhood, not great, Gerry. Anyway, rave on. I don't mind! I'm off.

PS Gerry, in answer to your question, did God create himself?

The ancient Hebrew conception of God was he who was, or I AM THAT AM, or YHWH (or Yahweh although the ancients did not use the vowels because that would resemble a name). He did not have a name because he did not at all resemble the Gods of the other ancients, guess that would have been the Egyptian gods or maybe the Cretan. So he is pure existence and,as such, has no beginning nor end, hence could never have been created.

There is scientific evidence (see "The Goldilocks Enigma") that matter and time were born together at the initial blast of Big Bang. There was no before, as time began with matter, and will end with matter.

Hence, the Creator created time as well as matter, existed before time and will exist after matter runs down. The ancients weren't too wrong on what happened, only failed on the scale. St Augustine also wrote that time was created along with the heavens. So here they reckoned rightly. Just couldn't prove it, which it looks like we have...not the Creator part, the simultaneous creation of time and matter part.

I know it's strange, but " There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,/
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Mary says:
"but if you can't appreciate Yeats, you have no ear (would say no soul but can you say that to an atheist?)"

See what I mean?

Supplement:
No wonder atheists sometimes get grumpy at the pious lot, who think we other humans have no "purpose". A pinnacle of self-righteous conceit, barely camouflaged. A person without a purpose has no value, hence no right to live - there you have the history of religion.

"Now his wars with God begin.
At stroke of midnight, God shall win."

(Not as stroke usw., a single letter makes a difference!)

And hey! anon1, the smart, world weary anon not the merry one or any of all the other ones,all I assume atheists and fearsomely well educated, I never said it was anything but doggerel, but if you can't appreciate Yeats, you have no ear (would say no soul but can you say that to an atheist?)

Mr Mark

You misunderstood--as you often do. My second objection to atheism was its view of life as an accident, the result of successive random mutations and the survival of the fittest (or least unfit, either way both are tautologies.) I'm not looking for a reason for our existence, only objecting to the atheist answer of a process in lieu of a cause.

Mr. Mark,

thank you: I have never felt a lack of "purpose" in my life. There always was a purpose, both for myself and for others.

As per the famous contemporary theologian, Edward Schillebeeckx, God is not omniscient. Please read, pause and contemplate the following by Schillebeeckx:

Church: The Human Story of God,
Crossroad, 1993, p.91 (softcover)

"Christians (et al) must give up a perverse, unhealthy and inhuman doctrine of predestination without in so doing making God the great scapegoat of history."

"Nothing is determined in advance: in
nature there is chance and determinism; in the world of human activity there is possibility of free choices. Therefore the historical future is not known even to God, otherwise we and our history would be merely a puppet show in which God holds the strings. For God, too, history is an adventure, an open history for and of men and women."

i.e. No one, not even God or evangelicals can prophesy since that would violate the God-given gifts of Free Will and Future.

Mary C thinks we were "created for a reason."

What century is this again?

BTW - every sentient being eventually finds a purpose for their lives. One doesn't need a belief in imaginary gods to do so. In fact, it helps to find your purpose in life if you can rid yourself of the religious baggage first.

Josh-

And with Islam, it has had the built in tribal bent toward Saudi Arabia. The Koran declares that is should not be translated into any other language that Arabic, and that the Great Caliphate should come from one of the Rulers of an Arabian Country. As long as Saudi holds Islam's greatest shrine hostage along with the access for the required pilgramage, it is in the front running. The creators of the koran were as careful as the 300-400 yrs where christians scripted and rehashed the text that became the bible. Both very carefully protected their priesthoods and bestowed them with spiritual superiority and secular power.

Saudi denies support for al queada, but the Wahabi Mullahs are the religious arm of the ruling family that teach their fundamentalist and tribal version while funding al queada and maitaining unrest throughout the middle east.

While I often put much blame on Israel for inciting unrest, Saudi wants all of the rest of the mideast more concerned with each other and Israel than the Saudis own corrupt and decadent tribal rulers who seek to extend their rule across all of Islam.

As usual, regardless of whether any of the prophets of the Cults of Abraham existed, the religious decendants are all designed to be tools of whichever political partner will make life easiest for it's priesthood, while making life as difficult as possible for it's detractors.

Actually, no other religions show the serious consideration of creating political alliances as do the Cults of Abraham, and that is reflected in their long term 'success', or at least survival.

CONCERNED THE CHRISTIAN NOW LIBERATED

"No one, not even God or evangelicals can prophesy since that would violate the God/Nature-given gifts of Free Will and Future.", you wrote.

If God gets your persmission, can He then?

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

CCNL: "No one, not even God can prophesy since that would violate the God/Nature-given gifts of Free Will and Future."

This makes no sense. So if I tell my son his grandparents are coming for dinner, does his free will to accept that fact and plan his afternoon around that fact change? Did I destroy his free will to make choices on the rest of the evening? Give me a break! Prophesy changes NOTHING! You know what's funny? I frequent Atheist forums. One question I asked in one of them is "Would you believe in God if the rapture happens?" SURPRISINGLY, most said, with absolute certainly and with a hard heart "NO!" Prophesy changes NOTHING.

Plus, your opinion of the predestination, foreknowledge, and election is simply wrong. It has nothing to do with salvation. Salvation is on the basis of WHOSOEVER WILL (Rev 22:17). Election and predestination, if read in context, has to do with the believe being "conformed to the image of Christ." IOW, becomes a better person, which explains how someone miraculously changes from a sinful lifestyle to the exact opposite when they accept Christ as their Savior.

M. Anonymous:

You write: "Religion is and was an opiate and a distraction."

Much more now. Geopolitics, and, at least for Christianity and Catholicism, big business.

Gerry,

Last post as I must be off, and I see a post from Bewildful to which I must reply ASAP

The Romantics, like their Renaissance forebears, sought to replace God with themselves, in the former case, more properly, with poetry. Wallace Stevens sought a remedy with "The Emperor of Ice Cream," available via Google.

M.

Gerry,

With respect, Sartre said it better. Camus, too.
Yeats, in his own way.

M.A.

CCNL:
that's actually a very interesting philosophical argument, and I've read it in the context of how such an argument eventually gives rise to the immorality of the gods.

I don't know if you'll get any takers, but it's worth some thought.

Dear M. Hamlet/Lear Anonymous, Pseudo, Bewildful, et al (possibly),

Certainly, we must welcome Horatio and/or Lear, and most heartly, into our Fellowship. My own word hord is rapidly depleting thesis-genically, and I am in great need of replenishing.

Where is the long-missed Pseudo? What?! Shall we then learn of NLP and Bandler through rotting texts?

M. Hamlet/Lear, if I may address myself to you by your atheist name, can you not do something to appeal to said Pseudo? I wish not to add to your heavy burdens, but lest we remain ignorant indefinitely, you must act. One cannot delay, awaiting this or that moment, a play in which to catch, etc. One must see better, 'though not act rashly, and so on. We look to you, Sweet Prince, aged King.

Yours,
Bewildful
Language Spokesperson Fellow

To Mary: Can you just for fun,
before you answer question one,
just try to answer question zero:
Did God create himself, the hero?
Which proves: The pious just delude
themselves with "god", a substitute,
a proxy figure for the mind
that wants to know, but cannot find
an answer why we all exist.

Admitted,

Gerry, atheist.

No one, not even God or evangelicals can prophesy since that would violate the God/Nature-given gifts of Free Will and Future.

Gerry,

An interesting post, your last. Religion is an remains an opiate and a distraction. It has enabled some of the more reprehensible leaders of developing nations to divert the attention of the disenfranchised from genuine remedies to their dismal plight. The problem facing us all now is that this centuries old ploy has gotten away from the poweres that be and into the hands of dedicated extremists with power.

Along these lines, it should be noted that the Europe and the US has a long and ugly history with respect to recent developments. Supporting the House of Saud, doing whatever it took to depose Zia and replace him with an Islamist who welcomed Madrassahs into desperate Pakistan are two examples. Many profoundly impoverished parents send their children to these schools in hopes that they will get an education to prepare them for something other than suicice bombing.

The US, which gives four billion dollars a year to that wretch Mubarek, is well aware of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, its govenment-sponsored anti-western media, used by Mubarek to distract his now starvaing populace from the sources of their exploitation.

All this notwithstanding, there are those, particularly, in Pakistan, who continually fight agains extremism, often at the risk of their own lives. I know some of them, highly educated men and women, some of the upper classes, who are literally putting their lives on the line every day. Some are observant Muslims, some not. For all, religion is a private matter. They ache for democracy.

Neither the US nor Europe is entirely responsible for the current situation, as these men and women will tell you. Still, strange bedfellows like British Petroleum do not help matters, quiet as its kept. BP, now renamed, has caused disasters in this country, which have been studiously kept out of the public eye.

In our stupid short-sightedness viz Pakistan, which has few natural resources, we now face the influence of China, which is busily building and creating jobs. All told, the current situation is a complex mess, brought on by corrupt government, neo-feudalism, and a lot of outside intervention that none of these folks really needed.

My father used to speak of livingroom liberals, people who watched TV here or in troubled nations and opined.

M. Anonymous

Dear Sir or Madam Horatio and/or Kent,

Speaking solely for my own person and not for the persons of Pseudo, Bewildful, et al (possibly), I should be delighted if you were to join our Fellowship. Any person torn between the dramatic merits of Horatio and the moral vision of Kent has a great deal to offer fellowship-wise.

May I ask why you think it necessary to choose between such estimable names, tragedically speaking, when you so clearly partake of the virtues of both? Why not continue on with "and/or"?

I confess I am sorely tempted to ammend my own name. Merry Hamlet and/or Lear Anonymous, or, M. Hamlet/Lear Anonymous ring with sweet dolor, not that either one would imply a hierarchic position with respect to you, my dear Sir or Madam.

You would be a welcome addition, indeed. I am certain that Pseudo and Bewildful will welcome you heartily.

Your Servant,
M. Hamlet/Lear Anonymous

PINEAPPLE - since the Japanese run Hawaii, why would they take offense at Obama's presence??
Visiting Pearl Harbor is an ironic experience to say the least. Most of the tourists are Japanese!
Funny how things work out, no?? I was taken there by a native Hawaiin back in 1978....

Surely everyone that visits the island of Oahu vists the Punchbowl - I know I have. Good view of Diamondhead!

You can tone down the rhetoric - I was in Vietnam about the same time McCain was there - before actually (1965-66). I wouldn't vote for McCain if he was the only one running...

Looks like Obama in '09!

J,

your free flow of associative thinking makes you quite sympathetic to me, as I use this side of the brain in musical performing and in teaching, with often surprisingly positive results.

Of course, it is no substitute for a clear logical conclusion. As much as you might try - lack of a feature is not a feature. Such abstruseness would be equivalent to maintaining that plus is minus, yes is no.

Fear is a necessary human trait (you look to the left and right when crossing a street out of fear to be run over by a car). It is the most misused tool for power-grabbing both in religion and politics. I despise this "instrumental" fear. I am free of this fear.

And I am not fearful, neither of stamp collectors nor of believers, as you accuse me of being, as long as they don't try to shove their belief down my throat. Then, of course, if I am attacked, I defend myself with all I have. Even in this case, I am not "fearful", but I defend my right to live and think against their "right" to kill me, e.g. as an apostate, re the Hamburg girl.

You say: "Is not being able to deal with these passions and commitment of believers to risk and perhaps die for what they believe in by calling them crazy also a fear?"

Flatly: No. It just may be the complete disinterest in their "passions" (depending on the partisan side you stand on; the US was founded by "freedom fighters" whom the British saw as "terrorists"). Please: The word "fear" has a certain well-established semantic field, which cannot be stretched infinitely.

Probably very few people stop collecting stamps out of fear, ha! And stopping to collect stamps does NOT create a vacuum that must be filled. I don't have to collect coins instead. I don't even have to pick up a NEW interest. I simply might have lost interest in collecting stamps, with no strings attached. Moreover: Not picking up a new hobby for the alleged "vacuum" is not identical with doing nothing, as you allege.

Your mulling on the usefulness of religion according to social level (in a later post) I can wholeheartedly agree on, which brings me back to my former suspicion that your "faith" is based on social utility, which I can also understand. You might even secretly agree to this, but would never publicly affirm it, out of "social" fear. Social utility does not say anything about the truth of its content. Santa has a lot of social consequence ("utility"), education-wise (for better or worse), commercial-wise etc. And: A three years-old "knows" that Santa exists!

I am not "atomized", and very far from "isolated", and I have no fellow-atheist ties or group sessions or group think, except for my wife (and two wonderful, successful and communicative children), whose mother had the splendid idea and guts to take her out of religion lessons at the age of 9 when a nun tried to install the horror of original sin into her, combined with the threat and fear of hell. I think it is Dawkins who calls it "child abuse".

I fully agree with you again, and it corroborates my point, that the medical and legal community has a set of strict moral values without having to resort to any religion.(Hippocrates, "nil nocere" - no necessity to believe in Zeus).

Anonymous writes:

Just when you thought it could not get worse, it got worse. From here and abroad, worse and worse.

Worse.

..........................................
Or, to put it another way:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity

Just when you thought it could not get worse, it got worse. From here and abroad, worse and worse.

Worse.

The Non Credo of Atheism

You could not answer question one:
How something did of nothing come.
“Life just evolved”, although sincere,
Can’t be the _reason_ we are here.
You tie yourselves up into knots
Define yourselves by what you’re not.
A creed so disappointing, small.
I just don’t like it. Not at all!

From ridiculous to sublime: here is Yeats on evolution: man walking upright, feeling, thinking, challenging God.

The Four Ages of Man

He with body waged a fight,
But body won; it walks upright.

Then he struggled with the heart;
Innocence and peace depart.

Then he struggled with the mind;
His proud heart he left behind.

Now his wars on God begin;
As stroke of midnight God shall win.

WB Yeats, “A Full Moon in March”, 1935

E Favorite,

Santa and Rhett Butler exist. What, exactly, about this do you not understand?

Jihadist: "I take it that people who choose their own "personal articles" of faith are to be dismissed as they are "making it all the more difficult to take them seriously as anything more than personal preferences" for you."

Society doesn't require us to respect each other's personal preferences in music or sports or food. it's OK to say " I don't see how you can stand - baseball/jazz/oysters.” But society does expect respect for personal, even idiosyncratic, supernatural and superstitious beliefs, Thus, it's not OK to comment disparagingly on someone's religious beliefs, whether they be idiosyncratic or completely dogmatic. However, if an adult proclaimed he/she believed in Santa Claus, that person would be ridiculed or sent for psych evaluation - maybe both. Yet, we can't disprove Santa, any more than we can disprove god.

Oh sure, we can trace the Santa story back to myth and prove that toys thought to have been brought by Santa were purchased by parents and even that there is no trace of Santa’s workshop on the north pole. But that doesn't mean that there isn't another personal Santa that a believer just knows in his/her heart and soul really exists.

And this kind of personal article of faith is supposed to be taken seriously by society?

E.ponsonby - Smallpiece:

Well, the worst has happened. What was feared transpired.

Please do not write back to CCNL. Our only hope is that one of the knowledgeables will not take him on.

TO ALL AND SUNDRY. THIS TOO SHALL PASS.

Dear Merry Anonymous, Pseudo, Bewidful, et al,

Formerly Anonymous, a common name, much like John Smith here in the States, I am contemplating a name change either to Horatio or Kent. In the meantime, if I may be so bold, kindly address posts to me under both names.

I am writing to inquire if I may join the merry Fellowhisp of Language Sportspersons. I confess to complete ignorance NLP and Bandler-wise, and near moron status regarding aporias, gaps, traces, etc.

It is merely a pssion for wit that emboldens me to put myself forward. To recommend me, I have only that great loyalty that served my the servants of milords Hamlet and Lear so well.

The Respected Senator John McCain would “Never,” even consider such an absurdity “the MAN is a US War Veteran,” and Senator Obama you could learn a thing or two from John McCain.

Citizens living in Hawai’i are having fits “absolutely outraged,” writing endless letters and commentaries (Comments) to both the Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu Star Bulletin since they printed that the appointed junior Senator is coming to Hawai’i possibly giving a speaking engagement inside Punchbowl National Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. It’s a Veteran’s National Cemetery not Obama’s personal “Soap Box,” to stand on and rant; it’s a place for those resting in peace. The people of Hawaii are angry at the thought of this and have every right to be at the report he’s planning this – it’s a disgrace. Punchbowl would NOT be a "wonderful backdrop." Talk about crass -- speechifying in a national cemetery during a political campaign. Imagine this: thousands of enthralled Obama supporters rushing around the cemetery to get close to the man, trampling over the graves of men and women who've given their lives in service to their country. The reactions posted in Comments still, when the idea of a Punchbowl speech was first floated are from angry families whose loved ones rest in peace. National cemeteries are no place for political speeches. Makes you wonder about the maturity and integrity of the people who proposed such a preposterous idea in the first place.

Senator sell your socialism opinions on Capitol Hill, Hawaii’s questioning and lost respect for the “so-called,” junior appointed Senator who’s turned into another Washington D.C.*Wanna-bee* just allot of talk nothing more. You’d make a great car salesman NOT A PRESIDENT you seem to sell plenty of B.S. to those not wise enough to read between the lines of a script written performance; every word out of your mouth is written by a paid staff member whose worked the D.C. circuit for years like the well known Mr. Rove,” Yes, he too, could write a good speech and America bought it; just look at our current sitting “Bobble head,” in the oval office.

Webster’s Fourth Edition describes Barack Obama as a “HYPOCRITE,” His own Pastor taught Trinity Church words of hate and racism while the Senator and his air-head-of-a-wife passed the tithe platter not giving even as 20 year members. He doesn’t support any causes really, not even his own Church “just the views of Reverend Wright’s anti-White; anti-Israel; anti-American points of view. A “greedy,” Senator is described in the Bible as a “HYPOCRITE,” as well. He’s a Racist Elitist Marxist or the Antichrist reading his well written speeches. the *Wanna-bee* Washington Politician has in less then 12 months become a disgrace to Christianity– He’s not a Christian man of his word; a poor excuse for one.

The Punchbowl National Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii is a sacred place for the many lying in Peace, Those US Military young and old, Men and Woman who gave their lives to this country will turn over in their graves at the sound of Obama’s political performance if he speaks there. Punchbowl Cemetery it’s not a place for a campaign rally “The Senator should keep his political performances with its Washington Socialism undertones to an area more suiting for “HYPOCRITES,” Senator your always welcomed to rant at Neil Abercrombie’s headquarters, but Punchbowl Cemetery is a resting place of peace and should remain so for those who rest there, - not an arena for your personal political agenda; Show some decency and class moron.

Added information and suggested readings:

1. Historical Jesus Theories, earlychristianwritings.com/theories.htm -- the names of many of the contemporary historical Jesus scholars and the titles of their over 100 books on the subject.

2. Early Christian Writings, earlychristianwritings.com/
-- a list of early Christian documents to include the year of publication
30-60 CE Passion Narrative
40-80 Lost Sayings Gospel Q
50-60 1 Thessalonians
50-60 Philippians
50-60 Galatians
50-60 1 Corinthians
50-60 2 Corinthians
50-60 Romans
50-60 Philemon
50-80 Colossians
50-90 Signs Gospel
50-95 Book of Hebrews
50-120 Didache
50-140 Gospel of Thomas
50-140 Oxyrhynchus 1224 Gospel
50-200 Sophia of Jesus Christ
65-80 Gospel of Mark
70-100 Epistle of James
70-120 Egerton Gospel
70-160 Gospel of Peter
70-160 Secret Mark
70-200 Fayyum Fragment
70-200 Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
73-200 Mara Bar Serapion
80-100 2 Thessalonians
80-100 Ephesians
80-100 Gospel of Matthew
80-110 1 Peter
80-120 Epistle of Barnabas
80-130 Gospel of Luke
80-130 Acts of the Apostles
80-140 1 Clement
80-150 Gospel of the Egyptians
80-150 Gospel of the Hebrews
80-250 Christian Sibyllines
90-95 Apocalypse of John
90-120 Gospel of John
90-120 1 John
90-120 2 John
90-120 3 John
90-120 Epistle of Jude
93 Flavius Josephus
100-150 1 Timothy
100-150 2 Timothy
100-150 Titus
100-150 Apocalypse of Peter
100-150 Secret Book of James
100-150 Preaching of Peter
100-160 Gospel of the Ebionites
100-160 Gospel of the Nazoreans
100-160 Shepherd of Hermas
100-160 2 Peter

3. Historical Jesus Studies, faithfutures.org/HJstudies.html,
-- "an extensive and constantly expanding literature on historical research into the person and cultural context of Jesus of Nazareth"

4. Jesus Database, faithfutures.org/JDB/intro.html--"The JESUS DATABASE is an online annotated inventory of the traditions concerning the life and teachings of Jesus that have survived from the first three centuries of the Common Era. It includes both canonical and extra-canonical materials, and is not limited to the traditions found within the Christian New Testament."

5. Josephus on Jesus mtio.com/articles/bissar24.htm

6. The Jesus Seminar,
mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/seminar.html#Criteria

7. Writing the New Testament- mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/testament.html

8. Health and Healing in the Land of Israel By Joe Zias
joezias.com/HealthHealingLandIsrael.htm

9. Economics in First Century Palestine, K.C. Hanson and D. E. Oakman, Palestine in the Time of Jesus, Fortress Press, 1998.

10. 7. The Gnostic Jesus
(Part One in a Two-Part Series on Ancient and Modern Gnosticism)
by Douglas Groothuis: equip.org/free/DG040-1.htm

11. The interpretation of the Bible in the Church, Pontifical Biblical Commission
Presented on March 18, 1994
ewtn.com/library/CURIA/PBCINTER.HTM#2

12. The Jesus Database- newer site:
wiki.faithfutures.org/index.php?title=Jesus_Database

13. Jesus Database with the example of Supper and Eucharist:
faithfutures.org/JDB/jdb016.html

14. Josephus on Jesus by Paul Maier:
mtio.com/articles/bissar24.htm

15. The Journal of Higher Criticism with links to articles on the Historical Jesus:
mtio.com/articles/bissar24.htm

16. The Greek New Testament: laparola.net/greco/
17. Diseases in the Bible:
etd.unisa.ac.za/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-08022006-125807/unrestricted/02dissertation.pdf

18. Religion on Line (6000 articles on the history of religion, churches, theologies,
theologians, ethics, etc.
religion-online.org/

19. The Jesus Seminarians and their search for NT authenticity:
mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/seminar.html#Criteria

20. The New Testament Gateway - Internet NT ntgateway.com/

21. Writing the New Testament- existing copies, oral tradition etc.
ntgateway.com/

22. The Search for the Historic Jesus by the Jesus Seminarians:
members.aol.com/DrSwiney/seminar.html

23. Jesus Decoded by Msgr. Francis J. Maniscalco (Da Vinci Code review)jesusdecoded.com/introduction.php

24. JD Crossan's scriptural references for his book the Historical Jesus separted into time periods: faithfutures.org/Jesus/Crossan1.rtf

25. JD Crossan's conclusions about the authencity of most of the NT based on the above plus the conclusions of other NT exegetes in the last 200 years:
faithfutures.org/Jesus/Crossan2.rtf

26. Common Sayings from Thomas's Gospel and the Q Gospel: faithfutures.org/Jesus/Crossan3.rtf

27. Early Jewish Writings- Josephus and his books by title with the complete translated work in English :earlyjewishwritings.com/josephus.html

28. Luke and Josephus- was there a connection?
infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/lukeandjosephus.html

29. NT and beyond time line:
pbs.org/empires/peterandpaul/history/timeline/
30. St. Paul's Time line with discussion of important events:
harvardhouse.com/prophetictech/new/pauls_life.htm

31. See www.amazon.com for a list of JD Crossan's books and those of the other Jesus Seminarians: Reviews of said books are included and selected pages can now be viewed on Amazon. Some books can be found on-line at Google Books.

32. Father Edward Schillebeeckx, contemporary Catholic theologian from his book, Church: The Human Story of God, Crossroad, 1993, p.91 (softcover)

"Christians (et al) must give up a perverse, unhealthy and inhuman doctrine of predestination without in so doing making God the great scapegoat of history."

"Nothing is determined in advance: in
nature there is chance and determinism; in the world of human activity there is possibility of free choices. Therefore the historical future is not known even to God, otherwise we and our history would be merely a puppet show in which God holds the strings. For God, too, history is an adventure, an open history for and of men and women."

i.e. No one, not even God can prophesy since that would violate the God/Nature-given gifts of Free Will and Future.

Again and again and again, the "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) of "evangilizing" Islam continue to be subjects The Jihadist cannot bring herself to discuss. Why?? Fear of Islamic death squads? Fear of the truth? Fear of her husband? Fear of/for her family? Fear of the Jinni? Having such fears simply and tragically adds to the "fems" of Islam!!!

Smallpiece,

Call me a "deflawed" Christian of the New Reality where The Beatitudes and the Human-Related Commandments are the guiding lights.

Anonymous writes to E.ponsonby - Smallpiece:

Have you not been warned? Stay away from CCNL. Worst case scenario, he'll answer you. Thinks he's found the one true way, you see, via Fr. Crossan, the Bible de-mythologized.

Watch out, or flying gospels, and mythic myth dispelling monstrosities of unreason, not to mention nonevidence will attack.
.........................

Ditto. Abort. Abort. Do not engage. Abort. Abort.

E.ponsonby - Smallpiece:

Have you not been warned? Stay away from CCNL. Worst case scenario, he'll answer you. Thinks he's found the one true way, you see, via Fr. Crossan, the Bible de-mythologized.

Watch out, or flying gospels, and mythic myth dispelling monstrosities of unreason, not to mention nonevidence will attack.

Hello Anonymous,

Thanks. I never knew that about Canada.

A Bangladeshi u mate once said, the rich don't care for organised religion, the poor need organised religion, the middle class are the most anxious on it.

Organised religion and personal belief do change with level of education and personal level of well-being and with choices available.

In Asia, Africa and Latin America, the urban and rural poor need organised religion (as in the houses of worship being like a town hall, community centre for group collaboration and support) to help get by in daily life.

I'm not too sure religion (or no religion) is primarily responsible for people's happines or otherwise. Depends on personalities and temperament. Unless it it the cause of personal unhappiness.

Er, do one really need prozac?

regards
"J"

*************************************************

Concy,

Seen that list before.

Today is Vesak Day. A public holiday here. You know this Buddhist celebration as one who knows all religions.

meditate
ruminate
speculate
explicate
pontificate
all it takes
for an enlightened state

Happy Vesak Day

ConcernedTCNL;

Are you a Christian? Or are you liberated?
I mean I didn't consider myself liberated until I stopped being a Christian. I would find it hard to be both knowing how religious belief involves so many intellectual compromises and contradictions not to mention the hair raising cognitive dissonance involved in trying to hold together totally conflicting ideas.
And lets face it, while Islam is certainly the most antagonistic religion around these days, there was a time when Christianity ran rampant and tortured and burnt and slaughtered and drowned millions of witches, heretics and poor ignorant peasants, all in the name of Jesus, or Mary,or God. We have no idea of the monstrous brutality committed by the Churches down through the ages.
The history is almost beyond belief. We are so lucky we live in saner times. Secularism allows sanity to prevail.
So shouldn't you really be an atheist? Don't tell me you believe all the skygod drivel after you attack all the Islamic nonsense.
One, surely, is as ridiculous as the other.

Dear Bewildful and Pseudo,

What joy to see your excellent name once more upon this screen. How fearful I for your welfare, aporetically speaking, thesis-wise.

And alack, I have not heard (directly) from Pseudo in hours, perhaps days, although I hold out hope NLP and Bandler-wise. Alone was I except for the presence of The Anonymous Trucker and Perspective, both of whom I woud like to join us in Language Sportsperson Fellowship, along with PaganPlace. I fear that within said group no interest resides, making the point pointless, but, nevertheless, Excelsior. Excelsior, Bewildful, excelsior. Even now, I hear your voice from deep within the cavernous gap of hours, days perhaps, ago.

A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!

Can I, who, lo these many hours, days, etc., was safe sans trace and slippage cry out less strongly?

I close now with these memorable words from Anon (possibly, Perspective).

"Forebearance & persistance are the road to success."

Your humble servant,
M. Anonymous
Language Sportsperson

It's tough being an atheist
when you know you're gonna die.
You cannot seek solace from some god in the sky
You cannot pretend that heaven awaits
Or that Gabriel stands waiting at some Pearly Gates.

(Not bad eh?)

You face reality, what else can you do?
Accept the inevitable but remembering too
that dead is what we were before our births
and returning there - (what rhymes with births?)
I'm a trucker by trade and too all this I'm new.
So forgive my poor poetry and I bid you adieu.

Again and again, the "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) of "evangilizing" Islam continue to be subjects The Jihadist cannot bring herself to discuss. Why?? Fear of Islamic death squads? Fear of the truth? Fear of her husband? Fear of/for her family? Fear of the Jinni? Having such fears simply and tragically adds to the "fems" of Islam!!!

Smallpiece,

A synopsis of the "fems"(flaws, errors, muck and stench) of all the Abrahamic religions:

1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was either the embellishment of the lives of three different men or a mythical character as was Moses, the "Tablet-Man" who talked to burning bushes and made much magic in Egypt.

Many of the 1.5 million Conservative Jews and many of their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.

The muck and stench in Judaism you ask?

Belief that the Jews are god's chosen people and its resulting consequences.
simpletoremember.com/vitals/ConservativeTorah.htm

2. Jesus was an illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter/simple preacher man who suffered from hallucinations 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. 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".

The muck and stench of Catholicism you ask?

Pedophiliac priests, atonement theology and original sin!!!!

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

The muck and stench of non-Catholic Christian churches you ask?

Adulterous preachers, "evangelizing propheteers"/prophiteers and atonement theology.

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

This agenda continues as shown by the assassination of Bhutto, the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the Islamic bombers of the trains in the UK and Spain, the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani “koranics”, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases, the Taliban nut jobs, and the Filipino “koranics”.

And who funds this muck and stench of terror? The warmongering, Islamic, Shiite terror and torture theocracy of Iran aka the Third Axis of Evil and also the Sunni "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.

Dear Merry Anonymous and Pseudo,

Please forgive this long absence of mine space-time-compression-wise. I hesitate to come right out with it for fear of raising alarm, but, Truth be told, in a moment of distraction, I fell into deep gap thesis-wise, remaining out of sight, reach, range, etc., for many hours, perhaps days.

Thank heavens there were no aporias, or matters might have become touch-and-go-fluid-wise. Would I could claim the same good fortune for slippage and trace!

Indeed, at moments, I was so dispirited that had I not the prospect of returning to the good Fellowship of Language Sportspersons, I most certainly would have perished.

Mercifully, all's well at present. Restored to excellent health, I am once again braving hurricanadoes thesis-wise, my life's work, s job that must be done, etc., etc.

Most excellent friends, I am among you again.

Yours,
Bewildful

Hey ConcernedTCNL

What you got against Muslims anyway? I mean what's your beef? Don't hold back. Don't beat about the bush.Just come out and lay it on the table. What is your problem?

In the old days, Jihadist, folks would have little wooden signs in the home, like In God we Trust, or Jesus Saves or whatever. So its funny that things have changed enormously since WW2 people joke about such things now. The times they are a changing, and they ain't ever gonna stop changing either.
Despite the surge of Islam, religion as a whole is loosening its grip on people's affairs; most notably in Europe; or more speedily in Europe; but it's happening on this side of the pond too. In Canada, where I live, the decline of the church is clear. It's a different world than just 50 years ago. I don't personally know anyone who attends church these days. It's just not a thing that people do anymore. Except for some old folks I see.
In a way I regret the changes. Religion kept many folk feeling good and kinda safe, with God always there to turn to.
But they were simpler times, and the people were simpler people.
But, if there is no god, it seems silly to just pretend there is one, just to feel better about things. Better to face the reality of life without gods, just take your prozac and be happy.
It works for me.

Concy,

Ohhhh....Feeling neglected by moi? Okay. I'll indulge you so you'll let it rip here and there.

CCNL : "As all of us will, Jesus had a last supper but many historical Jesus studies indicate that no one really knows what happened at Jesus' last supper or what was said if anything."

Do we know what they really ate and drank?

Do we know the actual table plan/seating arrangement and full menu at the Last Supper?

Do we know who cooked for and served at the Last Supper?

Was it a woman/women not worthy enough to be recorded by anyone, only on those who ate and drank at the Last Supper?

Why are the Jesus Seminarians mostly, mostly, mostly Caucasian men?

Someone here mentioned a "white God". Did God not look like Morgan Freeman? Or did he mean James Mason?

Why are there no female signatories of the "Evangelical Manifesto" and mostly, mostly, mostly Caucasian men?

Did I miss a gender indeterminate name or two or three in the list of personkinds who signed the "Evangelical Manifesto"?

Actually, Dr.Know, I was hoping my urologist would have prescribed an orgasmatron rather like the one Woody Allen used in the film Sleepers. But apparently they are not yet commercially available.

So I just have to battle on, single-handedly, you might say.

But life goes on.

And the "fems" of "evangelizing" Islam continue to be subjects The Jihadist cannot bring herself to discuss. Why?? Fear of Islamic death squads? Fear of the truth? Fear of her husband? Fear of/for her family? Fear of the Jinni? Having such fears simply and tragically adds to the flaws, errors, muck and stench of Islam.

Ah, Anonymous,

Thanks. I did get that quote wrong. It was, "In Cod We Trust" as you pointed out.

Why would anyone want to get all huffy on that and "People Eat Here Just For The Halibut" sign.

And there are Holy Mackerels. It seem to be invoked often on people's lips, but I've never actually seen one or know their significance in any religious rites.

As for Holy Toledo, what are the religious shrines in that city?

**************************************************

Anonymous,

Non-stamp collectors are not a group. So, what was the point?

That those people can't be categorised as the non-stamp collecting group. We can always do surveys So:

* do you collect stamps?

* if yes, why?

* if not, why?

* if you don't collect stamps, what do you collect?

* if you don't collect anything, what do you do?

**************************************************

E Ponsonby-Smallpiece,

Second suggestion after Dr. Know: Wear car-racing crash helmet that has solid build and very strong clear face casing for your prostrate cancer prevention activity.

And the "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) of Islam continue to be subjects The Jihadist cannot bring herself to discuss. Why?? Fear of Islamic death squads? Fear of the truth? Fear of her husband? Fear of/for her family? Fear of the Jinni? Having such fears simply and tragically adds to the "fems" of Islam!!!

Stamp collectors are a group.
People who do not collect stamps are not a group.
why can't Jihadist get it?

E. PONSONBY SMALLPIECE - recommend closing your eyes to prevent injury/blindness from flying debrix - best of luck.

Jihadist;

The sign said "In Cod We Trust". Another sign says,"People Eat Here Just For The Halibut".
No religious groups have yet complained. There were no demonstrations; no-one was beaten, and the store was not attacked. But then, that's what Canada's like.

Talking about masturbation, my urologist told me to jack-off at least three times a week now that I'm over seventy, and had had the laser operation to reduce my prostate gland. Prostate cancer is maybe what goes wrong when semen are no longer produced or used. It's important to keep the spermatozoa coming; even if you DO go blind.

Dear Perspective,

Btw, the same Columbia Opportunist Fool who gave us "trickle down," has been morally and economically converted to bring us "spurt," so to speak, much of which I have not seen.

M. Anonymous

Dear Perspective,

I don't really know what it is that I relied on--will, primarily, methinkst. Sometimes, I've judged events fortuitous, once or twice, probably thrice, providential. Spent most of my life trying to improve things society-wise. Had some success, but have long wanted to be inward bound, as now I finally am.

Have tried to think rationally future-wise, planned to make life map one of those days, etc. Destiny gave mixed signs. What with Time's winged chariot drawing, etc., I'm in-between future-wise, a bit distrustful of destiny. Though inward bound am I, I think.

More on personal destiny?

Yours,
Merry A.

Paganplace,

Thanks for that clarification on "snake oil". Someone here mentioned he saw a sign, "Cod is God" or "God is Cod". So now, which is better - cod liver oil or snake oil? Akee and cod is good.

**************************************************

Gerry,

If atheists are not a group, sociologically, demographicallly or by self-defined identities, what are they? A non-collection of isolated individuals? Atomised and stand-alone individuals with no linkages with other athiests?

Are you sure there is no "group reflexion" or "groupthink" in the "non-group" atheist "community?

Does a group has to be defined by set club membership and rites? Is not a group identified by what it held as commonalities of shared views?

No one ever said "groups" have to physically congregate in a specific place. It can be in a specific space in cyberspace as cybercommunities.

Are you sure defining and explaining atheists by what they don't believe in is as akin to not collecting stamps, as in "Not collecting stamps is a hobby"?

Not collecting stamps may no longer be one's hobby. But it never stop a former stamp collector to have a new hobby to say to those who still collect stamps are a waste of time.

Surely you are not shooting down stamp collecting? Some stamps were auctioned for thousands of pounds/euros. They have beauty and value for those who know what they are doing in collecting stamps.

Stopping to collect stamps also means you have lost interest in it, or have other new interests and priorities. But of course, nature abhors a vacuum and so does one with one's time and mind. Unless one is happy to be thinking and doing nothing.

As for your contention that " "You don't need any particular religion to establish a set of morals" so I will go into non-religion based set of "morals". The code of conduct or ethics for the professions, include legal and medical, are more strict and punitive than religious ones. One can actually get disbarred or expelled from the legal or medical profession for breaching them.
Of course, some would rather some lawyers burn in hell than to be merely disbarred from breaches in ethics and such.

People were read the Miranda Rigths when detained by police for suspected crimes. The Ten Commandments and the Seven Deadly Sins are quite good to be read to lawyers before they meet their clients, advise their clients, set the fees and go to court.

And you said, "Fear is the root of religion"? Many atheists seem and like to think so, so why are they so fearful of believers then, being the religion-liberated, free and fearless ones? Is fear of chaos, discords, disorder and conflicts not legitimate fears for those who want security and peace to live his life as he desires?

Are the so-called "fears" giving believers courage to fight against temporal authority and for what they believe in and for their rights to live as they chose ? Is not being able to deal with these passions and commitment of believers to risk and perhaps die for what they believe in by calling them crazy also a fear?

**************************************************

Anonymous,

I see now why you know much about traditional medicine. The hunting and killing of endangered and protected animals is terrible, especially for deers, bears, tigers for specific parts. Farmed crocodile tail is not so bad. It taste like a cross between chicken and lobster.

**************************************************

Andrew,

Perhaps, if you are born in New Delhi, you would probably be a Hindu. If in Bangkok, a Buddhist, but not necessarily one who is devout in the faith "born" into.

My background is not quite normal for some people. My parents are indifferent to the faiths of their parents and ancestors. One can say they are agnostics and baby boomerish.

As for belief in God, for the logic, fact and reason drivene among us, it does not make sense at all.

I for one, don't find it too thrilling to go by what one know already know, what one can see and touch. Not to exciting to read on what is already know and and be excited that someone put out exactly what I think and felt in words and terms better than I can. And to repeat or quote those, and not to wonder and wander at all in all directions on further questions and possibilities.

Belief in a God seem to be auto-wired in me for as long as I can remember and am conscious of the world. It did not diminish whenever I look around at nature, up and above and beyond. I believe there is countless life in the universe. I believe everything has a beginning and an end. Everything has a cause and effect.

I believe we still don't, as yet have the all the knowledge, the mental understanding, the scientific and technological means to find all the questions that is above and beyond us.

**************************************************

E Favorite

I take it that people who choose their own "personal articles" of faith are to be dismissed as they they are "making it all the more difficult to take them seriously as anything more than personal preferences" for you.

Why dismiss someone's personal choices and preferences in religion when it is all right in music, the arts, politics etc? In history, man has never taken any of his religious tenet, creed, dogma, practice, rites in toto. Some pared them down, some add on to them.

Surely you not saying believers must either hold all their creed in toto to be taken seriously, but then again not and call them inerrantists and fundamentalists? Or to discard the creed all together and be atheists and thus would be taken seriously?

This seem quite an all or nothing criteria or paremeters.

One would certainly not be dismissive of and dismissing non-believers for defining themselves as spiritual atheists or apatheists or anti-theists and other self-identification and self-definition due to their personal preferences and choices - some atheists wants religion done away completely, some only from the public square and such and everything in between.

The personal is the political. It should be taken seriously, whether someone's preference is for pyschedelic rock or chamber music or country music. Same for faith and politics. The personal is the asserted and argued over.

For example, I share a few similar musical preferences as Mr. Mark, but he despised gospel and I love it too as a music genre. I do share a love for rock and jazz like Chris Everett, but not psychedelic rock and jazz soloist-instrumentalists as much as he, preferring jazz vocalists and big bands instead. These differences in personal preferences can get us into intense disagreements on why even under the broad shared "like" of something, but a niched and particularised preference within that something. Personal preferences and tastes can be touchy, touchy, touchy because they are personal to holder.

Cheers
"J"

Here's a tip for posters than can't post because of filters - re-boot your computer......this has worked for me many a time!! Good luck.......

Merry - it was, and by virtue of the number 7 you should have had at least of modicum of luck so far. Aries is a creative high energy sign, so that bodes well in many endeavors!

Yes, we're all missing Farnaz about now, but I think the whole idea of building a moral society was her thing, as it was with the Greeks - and we know how that turned out....but we have to have hope.

While the USA has pretentions to morality, there is little to substantiate much success in that direction, historically speaking....were it not for our vast wealth as a result of natural resources, great production capacity and a willingness to fire-bomb the Germans while using the A-bomb on the Japanese in WWII, one wonders where we'd be today? The buck stopped with Harry.

As it is, that vast accumulated wealth is either trickling out of the country or up to the top 5% at warp speed - so who really knows our national destiny??

And as luck would have it, my number is 11. All in all, I've been a very lucky person - the legendary 'landing on his feet' type of guy, when by all rights life should have been a disaster.

It's funny, but the older you get the less you rely on luck to get by .... something I happily did for many years and it worked!

With mortality getting up close and personal, you lose faith in luck, but gain faith in your own personal destiny - hard to explain, I know. I think it's a spiritual thing, but not in any conventional sense. If you're Irish, this can't be helped.

Perhaps a field trip to Las Vegas??

Dear Anonymous, Perplexed, Perspective,

You write:
Merry - actually no, I'm more Perplexed and occasionally with some Perspective rather than Pagan - although an appreciator of the latter. The letter P is number 16 of the alphabet, it so happens - and numerologically speaking, we must then combine the 6 and 1 for the final result = 7.

Quite telling, no, when one brings Perplexed, Perspective, Pseudo, and PaganPlace together in one declarative.

(Occasionally) Perspicacious,
Merry Anonymous

JJ found a way to overlay his post on top of another - this is very clever. WAPO whacked it, but still - if we could just figure this out maybe we could block all future posts from the outer-space of JJ's inner space.......any cyber-geniuses out there??

Dear Perplexed, Perspective:

Was it you, then, that that had the discussion with Farnaz about Christian Cabbala?

I ask because I have another mystical scribbler to report on.

Also, what do you make of this? Numeralogically speaking, my number is seven.

Your,
Merry A.

To All Of Humanity.

Fear not. I love you all. See you in the Kingdom.

Sincerely.

Merry - actually no, I'm more Perplexed and occasionally with some Perspective rather than Pagan - although an appreciator of the latter. The letter P is number 16 of the alphabet, it so happens - and numerologically speaking, we must then combine the 6 and 1 for the final result = 7.

Pythagoris would tell us the number 7 has both mystical and magical portent, and I happen to know the Druids held this number to be equally significant - so the axiom 'life is more than a coincidence' is quite literally true to both the Greeks and the Celts.

While I've not read Brenden, we are equally Irish and of approximately the same age - although I'm still here and he is 'there'........we did share two pastimes - house painting and Guinness, although I haven't seen a paintbrush in quite a few years! On the other hand....well, we have to quench our thirst from time to time. So let us raise a glass to the Emerald Isle!

I don't speak Gaelic but do appreciate most all Celtic music.....and really, every one should have a stone in their front yard as a salute to the durability of nature - I know I do.

Dear WaPo Blocker God,

If the return of JJ had escaped your notice, surely it has returned to said notice by now.

The one named above, having broken through from the other side dwells, again, among us thread-wise. Kindly inform the Named Above to heed the music of his Loonaspheres and aid him, poste-haste, on his way extra-terra.

Your Servant,
M. Anonymous

Dear (Arcane) Anonymous:

Are you PaganPlace? There is a bit of the Celt in your last post to me, but PP I do not quite think gnostic be. Do you know Brendan Behan's famous words Druid-wise when priests came to visit him in hospital, thinking he'd seen the last of his cups?

If not, I shall have to look them up for you, since I can't call them up from memory. Only the laughter remains.

With respect and admiration,
M. Anonymous

Dear (Arcane) Anonymous,

Gnosis makes me nervous.

Sincerely,
M. Anonymous

JJ - and again.....you're married?? If so, the poor woman has my deepest sympathy. How can life be all that good, married to a psychopath?

Yes, you had sympathizers here many months ago On Faith, thinking you were just in need of extra medication - but not hardly! Only genetic re-assignment will get the job done.....

Dear Anonymous,

Thank you for your detailed reply. I shall study to be worthy of it.

Gnostic?

With gratitude,
M. Anonymous

ON FAITH - it's clear now that this poster can in fact eliminate and replace other posts....
The infamous JJ, has actually figured out a way to hack On Faith - his antisocial perversity really knows no bounds - time in prison well spent JJ! Congratulations and I see your time at home working on computer skills is paying off. How do you get around the ankle bracelet?? You really should be restricted from computer access, along with the voting and firearms restriction.

And you're still a nut job.

JJ - you're married? What extra-terrestrial creature would have you?? Actually, I like your other self much better. The one that occasionally shows it's rational side....probably the one you show to the family, right?? Boy, if they only knew! I shudder to think..........

Please see: http://protectmarriage.com/

JJ - one thing you lack completely is not only a sense of humor, but a sense of irony ..... this makes you the fanatic that you are. I suppose you've been told this before but it needs to be said again. People don't like humorless whackos.

Is that clear enough for you???

Anyway Merry, as I was saying before being expunged by the morality filters, one must pursue the full disquisition of that master revelator of Magick (HT) through the study of hermetics and hermeneutics - two increasingly rare areas of esoteric study, contemporaneously speaking, that facilitate our full knowledge and understanding of the mysteries as revealed by the Masters of the arcane......

Best to you Merry A -

I'm beginning to believe JJ has found a way to actually hack into these threads and remove posts with his own - because that's just what happened to my most recent post. It was there, and now it's not - but his usual rampant insanity is quite well displayed.....how did that happen???

And, a complete diquisition of the world of that grand revelator of Magick will require further study in the fields of hermetics and hermeneutics - subtle areas of study all too often neglected, contemporaneously speaking, in our search for truth.

Best to you Merry A -

Merry -

Clearly you are obstructed by your rising sign, rather than your sun sign. A fact little known to the astrologically uneducated public, the rising sign and various planetary factors (squares, trines, et al) influencing said rising sign have much impact over one's daily life and long-range plans - free will?? I think not.

Seek to unravel the conundrum of your conjugal misery through a better understanding of that timeless dictum made famous by the ineffable master magician of ancient Egypt , Hermes Trismegistus, who is reputed to have said, 'AS ABOVE, SO BELOW'.

It will take the perseverence of a true Gnostic to solve this timeless riddle, thereby gaining the power to make enlightened choices based on real knowledge - and thus, free will hastens to make it's belated appearance for the first time.

Dear Anonymous,

You write:
Merry -

Marry a Leo - the very sun itself....at that point, find a quiet shade tree and relax

Alas and alack, quite unbeknowst to me, at first, I did romance a Leo at one time. It lasted but four or five days, leaving ashes in the wake of said escapade. I thank whatever etc., etc., for the quick, though smoky ending.

I forgot to mention that when I chose Dancing with the Sun, the Triple Goddess cards were turned face down. This is the sort of thing that happens to me all the time. I simply cannot escape being revealed to myself as an Arian, astrologically speaking.

I am exhausted after decades of ramming. Help, please.

Sincerely,
M. Anonymous

Posted on May 18, 2008 03:51

"the anonymous trucker:
Hey Pagan.

May the love of Zotte go with you tonight brother.

But get your own God.

TAT"

Paganplace is a male.............

Dear The Anonymous Trucker,

You write:
How dare you disagree with me?? I have feelings you know. I didn't come here to have my deeply held non-beliefs contradicted and trampled on. I might be a trucker but I am also a human being.And if I say there are no gods I would appreciate it if you could respect my deeply held opinion without resorting to contradictions and other forms of abuse.

Please forgive me, no trampling on non-beliefs intended. It is merely that, having gazed with awe upon, Joan Rivers and, now alas, upon Cher, I find myself wavering Hebe-wise

I wish you had not written, "I am only a trucker," as in so saying, you injure me to the occupational quick. Throughout my college days, I studiously followed ads for long-distance trucker school, determining to enroll, upon completion of my Baccalaureate. Alas, the stars had aligned to guide me elsewhere, a bitter reversal destiny-wise, I thought, until late one night, I drove through Wyoming (no speed limit), vehicularly alone, except for long-distance truckers. At that point, life-and-limb wise, I knew that many are called, but wisely, celestially speaking, few are chosen.

Yours with respect and admiration,
M. Anonymous

"The fool in his heart says there is no Santa Claus, no Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, no tooth fairy, no Easter Bunny, and No Gods.
He's not that big a fool."

Yes. Yes.

He doesn't really being to feel foolish until he's lying on his deathbed, gasping for his next breath and wondering- what has this all been about? what is the meaning of life? and what will come after my death.

For the skeptic- its not until they truly face taking a dirt nap (and we all will sooner or later) that the masks come off and the veneer peels away..

Merry -

Marry a Leo - the very sun itself....at that point, find a quiet shade tree and relax.

Merry Anonymous;

How dare you disagree with me?? I have feelings you know. I didn't come here to have my deeply held non-beliefs contradicted and trampled on. I might be a trucker but I am also a human being.And if I say there are no gods I would appreciate it if you could respect my deeply held opinion without resorting to contradictions and other forms of abuse.
I get enough of that at home.

Religion takes over people's brains like the aliens took over earthling's bodies in The Invasion of The Body Snatchers; you think you're talking with your normal sensible earthling buddy but there's something different about him now. He doesn't make sense anymore. He's gone all strange. He's like another person. He's an alien, babbling about gods and devils in the sky, and everlasting life.
I want my friend back. The aliens turned him into a religious robot. And now he's lost, beyond reason.

Dear Pseudo, Bewildful, and (possibly) PaganPlace

Pseudo, I see you have returned after an absence that left me grieved and at sea in a theological storm.

How to answer your interesting question. When Watson and Crick proposed the double helix, they proposed a model. No one had ever seen a gene, DNA, RNA, etc. The question was what type of model could best explain observed phenomena. Corrollary question: Could that model be empirically applied and tested.

Anser to first question: Watson and Crick's. Answer to corollary question: Yes.

M. Anonymous
Language Sportsperson

Dear PaganPlace,

Self-Revelation. Last summer someone presented me with a bunch of Triple Goddess cards from which I was to choose one and write a poem. Unsurprisingly to me, given that I am Aires, I reached immediately for Dancing with the Sun, wrote a rather good poem.

Question: I fear I am too much i'the sun. Is there any way for an Arian to get some shade?

Sincerely,
M. Anonymous

Anonymous Trucker:

I think you are mistaken about Hebe. Hebe exists just as surely as botox, plastic surgery and nonsurgical alternatives. Atheistic progress.

Also, Hebe exists just as surely as Vitamin E, anti-oxidants, etc. Genuine atheistic progress.

Moral: Atheism (and science) do not of themselves bring about progress.

Sincerely,
M. Anonymous, Atheist

Nic Brady;

Harmonius what music do you like?

Uh Uh. You go first.

The fool in his heart says there is no Santa Claus, no Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, no tooth fairy,
no Easter Bunny, and No Gods.
He's not that big a fool.

J,

your examples of what I might do after ending superstition is not very well conceived - actually below your normal level of intelligence.

Stopping to collect stamps means exactly that: Stopping to collect stamps. There is no causal or logical connection to pick up or not to pick up any conceivable other activity (why you mention wine or women? What a funny, illogical, but typical association concerning a guy who stops collecting stamps! I might have liked or disliked wine or women as a stamp collector or as a non-stamp-collector!).

Any "group" (even atheist stamp collectors, lol) generates a set of morals. Stamp collectors have very strict morals about their hobby; these morals are at the core of the satisfaction to collect stamps. To prove: You don't need any particular religion to establish a set of morals. Just look at the St.-Col. lot!

And having stopped to "collect stamps" (here: having stopped to be a Christian, Moslem, Zeus believer etc.), I remember very well, as a former "stamp collector", how I looked down with condescension and compassion on the miserable crowd of non-stamp-collectors.

Of course, it must be said in favor of the stamp collecting lot, that they don't threaten apostates with death as is at the philosophical, theological and practical core of Islam, as was recently re-established officially by your highest religious authorities - as much as you like to dance around this ugly fact within your creed, trying to water it down with platitudes about the flawed nature of the human race.

Fear is the root of religion, in the double sense: Their perps are frightened to death that they might lose the grip on their "believers": Therefore they threaten them with death for apostasy, transferring their own fear of losing power to the fear of their subordinates to be killed or to go to hell. Religion is the cult of fear. I congratulate each and everyone who manages to free himself from it. I did.

Last week, a 16 years old Moslem girl was stabbed to death by her brother in Hamburg, Germany. His motive? Apostasy (in the widest sense).

Jihadist says, "If one only read On Faith threads, one would realise that not all believers abide by all the tenets, dogmas or creeds of their respective faiths, or to share similar interpretations. And do argue about them much and more."

Agreed - people do seem to choose their own personal articles of faith, making it all the more difficult to take them seriously as anything more than personal preferences.

Hey Pagan.

May the love of Zotte go with you tonight brother.

But get your own God.

TAT

It just occured to me.I just invented a god. Zotte.
How about that? My own god. If all the other gods were invented mine is in good company then. No different from all the others. I feel pretty good about that. I cant wait till I get in bed I can talk to Zotte under the covers and tell him I love him and everything. But WATCH WHAT YOU SAY about my God Zotte. He's just as real as your god. But He's more special than yours because I am the only one who believes in him. I imagine that would be tough on a God to be believed in by only one person in the whole wide world. Excuse me I'm getting all choked up just thinking about it. Now I know how it feels to love God now that I got one all to myself.my own personal imaginary friend.
Goodnight everyone.

"sorry i had to invent Zotte; poetic necessity)"

*laugh.* Sorry, there: you're too late. if she didn't exist before, she had to invent herself. :)

Here's to the truckers. Slan. :)

Sign in my local fish shop. In cod we trust. Gotta love it.

yes jesus luvs me the bible tells me so.what else does a man need. Thats retorical.

Talking of elegance, how about;

There is no God but no God.
No God is what we got.
No Mars, no Thor, no Jupiter
No Vishnu, Zeus or Zotte.(sorry i had to invent Zotte; poetic necessity)
No Eros, Joad or Artemis
No Morpheus, Hebe, or Tyre
And if I said that gods were real
I'd be a godamned liar
.
Ok I wont give up my trucking job.Best i can do.

Hope no one minds if I quote the below, next time someone in government claims monotheist religion confers reason and morality, in overriding exclusion to the rest of us.

K? :)

God is loves.

to The Other Anonymous;

You quote Groucho as saying "A rose is a rose is arose is a rose is a rose, is twice as elegant as, a rose is a rose is a rose".

Are you sure he didn't say " A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, is twice as elegant as - a rose is a rose is a rose"? Because your version has him one rose short. Short that is of being twice as much.

Groucho, unlike his wicked uncle Karl,was a stickler for detail.

Eric Peric Banana Pana Poperic Me Mi Mo Meric Eric:

Or 'there is no Count Dracula but Count Dracula.' How elegant.

How elegant was Vladimir Dracula? Had there had been Vlad the Impaler; how elegant would that have been?

Catholics are the same like atheists and Muslims coz they all got it wrong. There is only our white God who is our white God. How elegant do you wanit?

words words words words,dont matter coz theyre only words. to know God you dont need words. You just need to close your eyes and opun up your mind to the reality of Jesus. He's everywhere all the time, just waiting for you to come to Him with open arms and give Him a big hug. You suckers who dont believe in Him will be sorry one day. Its called cumuppance.

Eric Peric Banana Pana Po Peric:

"who said 'there is no god but god' was elegant?
What is more elegant is 'there is no god'.
It also has the advantage of fewer words, and a greater probability of truth behind it;
and that has to count for something."

Does your mind exist? Can you see it? Can you feel it? Can you touch it? Can you smell it? Where is it? In what cell of you brain is it? Or is it in your gut? Or is it in your heart? Does it exist when you are out of your mind? Probability Shmobability. A sample size of one. Methinks you infer a variance from one observation. Underdetermined your argument is. Silly are you.

Groucho Marx said ' a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose - is twice as elegant as - 'a rose is a rose is a rose'. Not sure I agree with him on that, but one man's elegance is one man's elegance is one man's elegance I've heard it said. I think.

TOA.

who said 'there is no god but god' was elegant?
What is more elegant is 'there is no god'.
It also has the advantage of fewer words, and a greater probability of truth behind it;
and that has to count for something.

No point something sounding elegant if it's also hooey.

How about, 'there is no tooth fairy but the tooth fairy?' Or, 'there is no Mickey Mouse but Mickey Mouse? Or 'there is no Count Dracula but Count Dracula.' How elegant.

Letting aside moral and supernatural aspects, organized religions are human enterprises that provide products and services for a fee.

Yes, this is what religions do as human enterprises: provide products and services to their members for a fee.

Some products are intangibles, other are just...products. From a religious organization you can get salvation, miracles, prayers on your behalf, books, CDs, DVDs, timeshare properties for vacations, etc.

Some services are related to the religious aspect of the organization, like funerals, baptism and matrimonies. Others are more mundane like charity, education, and fulfillment of psychological needs.

Obviously everything has a price. Members can get these products and services for a fee in money, allegiance, compliance in your conduct and beliefs, and compartmentalization in your reasoning.

In spite of the cost, even for some atheists this kind of products and services are an important part of their family and social life. Take matrimony. Assuming that the atheist is surrounded by a religious family and friends, this ritual is a great opportunity to celebrate with a social party the formalization of a marital union of a loved one. The supernatural aspect of the ceremony is ignored by the atheist, and in many cases by some of the religionists.

Without considering the religious aspect, are the members of organized religions satisfied with the products and services they are paying for? Are there new non-religious organizations entering into this market that can offer better products for same or less cost? Would you expect spin-offs of the organized religions invading the market with a more secular and personalized approach?

I expect that something like one of those scenarios or a combination could happen in the coming decades.

The best for all,

JAC

Harmonius;

What kind of music do you like?

Spiderman2 aka Canyon Shearer, Bible Thumper, Fortune Teller and Severely Brainwashed in that Old Time Religion,

Considering your recent rantings:

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

And what "voodooer of the hoodoo" blessed you with such stupidity in the field of fortune telling and interpretations of said stupidity???

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. Ditto for the bible and koran.

Adieu,

Merry's off. I lose here, a better where to find later on. (Apologies to Bill Ist).

Stay warm, Poor Tom. The weather's foul tonight.

Shalom! please do not Spell "SH-(o_)lolom". use 'o' instead of 'a' like in "Sh {a} Olom"!

Huh?

Let there be light. (Fiat Lux). Long overdue.

יְהִי אוֹר

Let us have light.

"Let there Be the "Fiat-Lux"! Please do not Argue as of Today!

Dear Pseudo, Bewildful, and PaganPlace,

Poor Tom's abroad....

Anonymous wrote:

Merry - quite right. Forebearance & persistance are the road to success.

Pseudo, this has your (un)mistakable artistic signature. I am heartsick with linguistic aloneness.

M. Anonymous
Solitary Language Sportsperson

People, eat less salt. It is rusting all your brains here.

"How did salt water turn into brain"?

Will I hear a different answer this time? Let's hear it from the most salty ones please.

Advance to be recognized. Paganplace? is that you? .

I'd like to complain about all the anonymous bashing going on on these threads. Most anonymouses are just people like evrybody else so who dont you leave us alone and bash somebody with a real nom de plume.

Enough I say.

Anonymous.

Mr. mark wrote "Yep, sounds like a reliable source for knowing a) where California is located, and b) what's going to happen in California in the future."

It's only a day or two since California made that gay law. You guys are too in a hurry. Just relax coz just a few years from now, that word would be rarity.

Cromett wrote "So at least change your rants to "sea water turning into brains." ".

Too much salt, cromett, kills the brain.

Jihadist, try not to define me. You are the most unqualified coz Islam could never understand true Christianity. I've seen that liveleak video about Islam. Maybe you should take a look at it and learn from it before your tribe starts WW3.

COME INTO MY PARLOR, SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY.

The flies all over America would hopefully settle in Califonia attracted by this gay marriage law. Then the Spider would make it's move. Ah, how intelligent is the Lord. His Wrath can no longer wait to whip all these flies with one strike.

SEE THE HAND OF THE LORD WORKING. IT IS SLOW BUT IT'S GRINDING EXCEEDING SMALL.

I'd like to talk music to anyone who's interested. Music is a passion with me. But I have to warn you that I do take offence with anyone rude enough to disagree with my taste in music. Disagree with my taste,and you attack my identity, you attack who I am. And that is something, up with which, I shall simply not put. Well, you know what I mean.
Now, what kind of music do you want to talk about?

Dear PaganPlace (much wished-for member of Language Sportspersons Fellowship):

I do not imply tiredness, not at all. Simply wishing your company in the merry dance of persiflage. (Body and wit must not be bruised to pleasure soul--Apologies to Bill, sometime Language Sportsperson)

Respectfully,
M. Anonymous
Language Sportsperson

"Ye Pagan?Wiccan?Witches?..... FAAGS been a.Watchin Us Aye!?"

Who better, 'Photon Guy?'

As Merry implies, I'm a being a bit tired right now.

This does not mean that life and vigor, and *smarts* are gone from the world.

JJ.

Some will say that there is no hope in the world but blind faith in utter destruction.

I say, all is reborn.

Only question is how easy or hard we make it.

I'll note that homophobia and prisons and desert mentalities are not the way.

Speak it, JJ. What do you fear of me?

Dear PaganPlace,

Thank you so much for your warning! (Well made!) Wouldst care to join the Language Sportsperson's Fellowship?

This is for you:

Ah! Sunflower

Ah! sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun,
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller’s journey is done;

Where the youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves and aspire;
Where my sunflower wishes to go.

William Blake (1757-1827)

Merry - quite right. Forebearance & persistance are the road to success.

JJ - do not be afraid of your manlove. Your mentor Harry taught you that all things are acceptable behind bars...why chide other people
for the same inclinations now that you're out??

In the spirit of Harry T, brotherly love is the key.....with the emphasis on brotherly.

"Pining away with desire, I remain

Merry Anonymous
Language Sportsperson'

Well, as both the Charge of the Goddess, and a rockin' Ned's Atomic Dustbin song say,

She's that which is found at the *end of desire.*

Doesn't mean desire is bad.... Does mean best you watch it. :)

Anonymous:

The filtering system is not quite God paring his fingernails, but close.

Periodically, it functions well for a few hours, but then gives up the good fight. Sometimes, I've succeeded in posting comments by changing a word or two, here and there, blanding out my remarks, etc., but sometimes not.

JJ is blocked for awhile but then gets through the loonasphere and re-enters. Surely, something can be done using key words.

It really is a nuisance.

JJ your prison experience left you damaged - it's sad but if you pray to Harry Therault you can be forgiven all your many sins.........

The fact that he can get through but no one else can post critical comments says something about WAPO and nothing complimentary. The filtering system sucks almost as much as JJ...........

PaganPlace writes:
Don't try to out-pseudo-Elizabethan English a Wiccan
..............................................

Read you this, Pseudo and Bewildful?

Pseudo!(and Bewildful)the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self! (Apologies to J. Keats)

Pining away with desire, I remain

Merry Anonymous
Language Sportsperson

For the studio audience, btw, that means that the thees and thous and actual 'you's' of Shakespearean English actually followed grammatical rules, not some arbitrary flowery substitutions, as moderns who think a translation of the time is a 'literal word.'

As for JJ bypassing filters to continue posting slurs, well. it only demonstrates how ineffectual it is to call a girl a slur against gay men by sticking a bunch of periods in there.

Don't try to out-pseudo-Elizabethan English a Wiccan, JJ.

Gods love Unca Jerry, but, the KJV caused cowans enough trouble as it is. ;)

WAPO - again, I am filing a complaint regarding offensive posting ..... what is it with you people?? Homo bashing is ok, but other critical posts are not???

WAPO - you're blocking my posts but posting the insane rants of our resident homophobic maniac??

What's up with that?? I'm filing a complaint.

" Anonymous:

"Merry Meet" with Satan!"

Whoever that's supposed to be.

My understanding is that that character is supposed to be all manner of bad cause he was a jealous follower of a jealous God and somehow managed to know no merriment, so had to try ending the world or something.

Merry Anonymous writes:

Finally, congratulations to California on recoginizing the rights of gay people to marry! Question: Why was the Pope's position on this part of PBS news last night? If hear about the Pope, I must, then I would recommend that the media report on him with a limiting statement, such as, "Of interest to Roman Catholics, the Pope...."

Quite.

"Merry Meet" with Satan!

Dear Pseudo and Bewildful,

It has been many hours, what with space-time compression, perhaps days, since the Language Sportsmen Fellowship last in good cheer gathered.

I can only hope that in this period, whilst sands fell hour-glass-wise, that you, Bewildful, are well, aporetically speaking, and that you, dear Pseudo, have had no more blocking mishaps NLP and Bandler-wise. The "heart aches and a drowsy numbness," etc.

Hoping to hear back from you soon, I remain,

Merry Anonymous
Language Sportsmen Fellow

the only way dirt becomes brain is when God says abracadabra over it. He can do anything.

Jihadist;

If I had had your background, I believe I would be as devout a Muslim as you are. Do you agree?

I say that if you had grown up in the environment that I grew up in, you would have not been a Muslim today, and quite possibly you may have been an atheist.

Do thoughts like that ever give you pause sometimes to wonder whether,after all,maybe God really is just an age old fantasy passed on down to us - in one form or another - from our primitive ancestors?

Such a possibility makes sense to me. Does it not make sense to you?

The simple fact is that religion has no place in the "public square," no business interfering in the affairs of government. That is first and foremost, particularly in a Constitution-based state, founded on the notion of separation of church and state, though tellingly, not in that order.

At present, four supreme court justices are Roman Catholic conservatives, the Senate is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, while the majority in the House are Prostestants of varying denominations. Why whould we be aware of this?
And, equally important, what is its significance concerning legislation and rulings on Constitutionality?

As for the Evangelical Manifesto, I could not care less what the Evangelicals manifest. What bothers me is their influence on legislators, there continuing CONVERSIONSIM. I am not asking that they be invisible, but I do ask that they leave me and other Americans unharrassed, that they remove themselves from the sphere of government.

As for the Reform Jews "Philadelphia Platform" (1869), mentioned someone on this thread, the Pittsburgh Platform (1885), the 1937 Platform, etc., said platforms were meant to formalize and reformalize Reform Judaism, a process begun in Germany in the early nineteenth century, as Reform Judaism was in the process of self-creation. Reform Judaism, today, bears little resemblance today to the Reform Judaism of thirty years ago, let alone that of 1869).

Most importantly, Reform Judaism did not seek converts. In fact Conversionism ceased in Judaism roughly seventeen centuries ago.
CHRISTIANITY, CATHOLICISM, AND ISLAM HAVE A LOT OF CATCHING UP TO DO,

Finally, congratulations to California on recoginizing the rights of gay people to marry! Question: Why was the Pope's position on this part of PBS news last night? If hear about the Pope, I must, then I would recommend that the media report on him with a limiting statement, such as, "Of interest to Roman Catholics, the Pope...."

Separation of church and state.

Merry Anonymous
Former Captive of Christianity

PAGANPLACE
I think I was too busy sacrificing babies and having extramarital sex to have time to read the memo. Gee, I should move to California and turn gay, too!

"Fiction like SOIL TURNING TO BRAIN all by itself. Endless stupid discussion. When will these "intelligent " people learn?"

Ah... I get it. Spidey's talking about his idea that it's more plausible that an uncannily-humanlike intelligence in the universe *turned soil to brain* in a *day* and immediately proceeded to try and indirectly coerce said brains into millenia of injustices based on some voyeuristic scheme mostly wound up about 'punishing bad, bad boys and girls' about sex.

When will we learn?

Someone didn't get the memo.

'SPIDERMAN2:

"Evangelicals and fundamentalists of all stripes, denominations and religious pursuasions are particularly prone to making absolutist statements regarding the 'truth' that many take as pure fiction. "

Fiction like SOIL TURNING TO BRAIN all by itself. Endless stupid discussion. When will these "intelligent " people learn?

WHEN,WHEN,WHEN?'

We have learned from people who believe as you do that your brand of religion is nonsense. While my own opinion is that people of your extremist views are examples of brains turning into soil, I might point out that almost all scientists agree that life began in the water, not in or from soil. No one can explain how soil turned into brains because it didn't happen. So at least change your rants to "sea water turning into brains." It will make you seem just a little less ignorant.

"Snake parts may have other homeopathic uses that us westerners could only imagine - although hopefully not in the same phallicly factitious and superstitious vein as the use of gorilla & ground tiger parts and rhino horns as found throughout the Near East for enhancing male virility or as novelty items - and sadly, beliefs that are leading the way to the slaughter and extinction of increasingly rare and threatened species."

Well, Anonymous, (go ahead and pick a name, any name) ...there is a difference between communicating tried and true traditional remedies in symbolic language, and applying superstitious associations that are *no more tested than the sales pitch,*

...And, actually, botulism toxin turns out to be not so safe as Botox salesmen insisted.

Big surprise, there. Botulism not a healthy thing to put right up front of your frontal lobes? Who woulda thunk? :)

Jihadist - while 'snake oil' is a phony panacea for what ails you, real snake venom is of course used medicinally with some success for the treatment of multiple sclerosis and other neural conditions - not to mention it's indispensible role in creating lifesaving snakebite antidotes. Other venomous creatures are similarly used - I saw something recently on the Australian funnelweb spider (world's deadliest arachnid) and the use of it's venom for something or other. Seems as though everything from Australia that swims or crawls is lethal.......

Thus far, nothing constructive with the venom of the blue ringed octopus - and surprisingly, a tiny sea creature that is the source of the world's most lethal natural venom, hands down - although botulism toxin from Granny's canned green beans gone bad is equally deadly - but good as botox for straightening out those nasty aging wrinkles.

Working around allopathic medicine as I do, I still have confidence that people do heal themselves in mysterious ways - the power of belief should never be underestimated! Science is confounded by many things, and spontaneously generated medical recoveries (as opposed to much more common remissions) is one of many such mysteries.

Snake parts may have other homeopathic uses that us westerners could only imagine - although hopefully not in the same phallicly factitious and superstitious vein as the use of gorilla & ground tiger parts and rhino horns as found throughout the Near East for enhancing male virility or as novelty items - and sadly, beliefs that are leading the way to the slaughter and extinction of increasingly rare and threatened species.

These are the kinds of primitive beliefs and practices that boggle the minds of rational thinkers. But I'm off on another tangent....

Would that you were right about Spiderman2 and JJ - however and alas....they are not spoofing - no, they are not kidders in the least! They are true believers, each in their own way - although it is my considered opinion that few on these threads know as much about the details of various religions as JJ himself - go figure!

And the "fems" of Islam continue to be subjects The Jihadist cannot bring herself to discuss. Why?? Fear of Islamic death squads? Fear of the truth? Fear of her husband? Fear of/for her family? Fear of the Jinni? Having such fears simply and tragically adds to the "fems" of Islam!!!

Answered your twisted imaginings about 'Sodom' back on said other thread, Spiderman.

J,

We are no group. Ergo no group reflexion. We don't pray five times a day in such a terrible mass choreography seen in mosques, or kneel and cross ourselves with "holy" water in order to get St.Dawkins go to heaven (or have our football team win the next match). We don't mumble verses in hope for the public installation of our "non-hobby". We don't go to a church or a mosque or a temple on weekends or have fits of "tongues" for our "faith".

If we see a vehicle going up into the sky, we think it is an airplane, not a Pegasus with a chariot. And if two plates of earth crust grind against eachother, causing an earthquake, we can understand it by doing the same movement with our hands, and don't believe "God" punished an ignorant crowd for lack of a belief it has never come across.

We have different priorities, of course. While Mr. Mark prefers opera, I am more into string quartet.

Bgone is no real atheist, believing in Satan (the fallen angel).

And, granted, JJ and spiderman2 and some others are no "religious" adversaries to be taken seriously.

And as to Arminius, I have already said that I can empathize with his transcendental experience, without having to give up my belief in reason. The experience is embraced by reason.

And, as far as I can see, we ruminate very little about believERs. We just don't "believe", with all the implications it conveys.

Hi, J. :)

"I'm not sure using snake oil is a good example. You're forgetting I live in Asia."

In American turn of phrase, 'snake oil' is a general term originally from the Old West, for highly-alcoholic 'remedies' sold by traveling preachers/hucksters who provided acceptable excuses to drink, by fraudulent claims of healthful benefits. :)

Hello Anonymous,

I'm not sure using snake oil is a good example. You're forgetting I live in Asia. In East Asia, snakes are eaten, snake blood are used for medicine, snake venon used as antidote for snake poisoning. It is traditional medicine and remedies. And it works. Mind over matter?

As for proselytizers, it only takes a member of another faith to make them either berserk, or speechless, or careful. After all, they are trying to win converts from other faiths more than they do for atheists. None succeeded of course.

You don't have to be a rabid believer to know the world is condemned by man's own venality if unchecked and unquestioned. Hell is here and present for millions and millions due to any given man-made and natural disasters, poverty, disease, state oppression, wars.

When a believer tells someone he or she is going to hell, he or she is really saying "Go to hell" for not agreeing with him or her. Not a very considered reaction or response. In fact, most desperate for agreement.

And not good enough to just talk anymore, but to act up after all the considered observations are made on being dominated by a dominating religion/s in the public square. The obvious truth is, religionists do put up organised, concerted and sustained fight for their "truth" and their group to prevail in history and now.

Only the realistic ones realised this is not possible anymore in this increasingly fragmented and sectorised world of personal belief and preferences even within the same faith groups. And do watch out and tremble at interfaith cooperation for common objectives, such as shared good morals and values to be promoted in the public square.:)

You should know by now that having "conviction" is more potent than being "right", or doing the right thing. Bush and the neocons also proved that. And not all of them are the religious sorts.

By the way, I do think JJ and Spidey are both atheists having lots of fun in On Faith threads and doing quite a good job in spoofing, though both do get quite nasty sometimes. If I am wrong about them spoofing, I should worry, perhaps, for them.

As for the US presidential candidates having "spiritual adivisers/guides", I don't recall any candidates in other nations with democratic systems and elections having them. Even in Muslim states, except for Iran with a Supreme Council comprising of ayatollahs. They would be laughed at for having a "religious accessory" to make them look good and deem to be pious hypocrites.

I agree with you mixing politics and religion is toxic for everyone and not to the larger interest and good. Too many examples of that over here. Decoupling religion from state affairs and to maintain seperation of church and state, or a secular state is unrelenting battles on the ground. It takes a lot of time, money and networking in the public square.

Cheers
"J"

"J"

Spidey thinks that the Bible makes prophecies about what's going to happen in California.

This is the same book that doesn't mention any species of animals that live outside of an area within a few hundred miles of where the writers of the Bible lived (what, no marsupials? How did those marsupials get to Noah's ark and then back to Australia after the flood?).

This is a book that states quite clearly that if you ascend a high enough mountain or climb a tall-enough tree that you can see "the four corners of the Earth" in a single view because the Earth is flat.

This is the same book that's often wrong about geographical locations, the book that avers in all seriousness that the Jews wandered in the desert for 40 years when the distance from Point A in Egypt to Point B in Canaan was no more than a 10-days walk. This is the book that talks about a town called "Nazareth" when said town doesn't appear as an actual town until the 4th century.

Yep, sounds like a reliable source for knowing a) where California is located, and b) what's going to happen in California in the future.

"You're stupid," will come Spidey's response."You don't understand the metaphors of the Bible."

What's to understand? Idiocy and lies are the same whether they're found in the Bible or the latest press release from the Bush administration. It doesn't take a genius to call an illiterate and pathetic spade a spade. It just takes an ability to see and acknowledge THE OBVIOUS.

Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between some of the hard-core atheists and some of those that consider themselves, born-again.

Some of them sure seem to be mirror-images of each other.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

And Jihadist, look no further than the confabulations and rationalizations of Spiderman2 and JJ in order to witness premiere examples of religious fanaticism run amuck - admittedly pretty far along toward the extremist end of the religious continuum, but not at all uncommon where religious beliefs are concerned.

The perigrinations of religion almost seem by definition to be subject to an extreme mindset. And please do remember, without theists, there would be no atheists.........

John McCain's spiritual mentor the Rev. Hagee spouts the same typical fundamentalist & biblically inpired claptrap that desparately needs exposure to the light of day - since when does irrational fanaticism effectively inform the future intentions of national leaders in the USA?

The fact that McCain sought out this apocalypse inspired nutjob's support should mean that he is indisputably unqualified to be a serious candidate for the presidency - of course it was only politics rather than belief for McCain, but then that makes it even more disingenuous.

This is the kind of hyprocrisy that atheists, among others, would like to root out in the civic, governmental and political arenas....and a mistake that also continues to haunt Obama via his former affiliation with Rev. Wright.

Today religion mixes with politics like no other time in modern history, and for the USA this admixture has been not only toxic, but has contributed considerably to our present political nightmare. And of course, we need say nothing more as regards the role of Islamic fundamentalism in present world affairs.

Our current political climate has very probably provoked the outspoken and numerous anti-religious critiques and sentiments concerning religion in the public sector most recently, when compared to the predictably far less noxious differences that might otherwise prevail between atheists and religionists - if religion were more thoroughly kept out of politics and in particular the legislative and judicial arenas.

I refer to all religions of course, not only Christianity. In a secular society, the freedom to practice the religion of your choice does not include crafting the religiously inspired laws of your choice.

Non-religionists and moderate religionists alike are bound to find our present potpourri of politics mixing with religion both offensive and less than productive for the overall benefit of society at large.

Needless to say, we don't need another evangelically inspired born-again in the Whitehouse any time soon - our present one has done more than enough damage to last for the next several decades.

Paganplace, That's the prophecy and it will happen. Let's just wait and see. The second Sodom has arrived so let's wait for it's partner, a "rain of fire" - missiles in other words.

c ya later

Hello S C Cromett,

Not all evangelicals agree with that "An Evangelical Manifesto" either. A camel is a horse build by a committee. So was the Evangelical Manifesto.

Harris and Hitchens would probably ante up the language of the Atheist Manifesto while Dawkins and Dennett may try to tone it down perhaps. Perhaps not. But Berlinerblau should do the final editing if it is to get off at all. Speculation is fun.

Religion is a mess of divergent views even within the same faith group. Even those with headquarters and recognised leader/authority.

Just a point to say even if we share core belief or disbelief, there are variations and shades of them. Even for enviromentalism, the World Wildlife Fund do flinch at and disagree with the actions of Greenpeace even if both share concerns on the environment.

I am only too aware of such diversity of views within my own faith group and how challenging it is on the ground. Easier on paper than in reality - NGOs with varying shades of for or against, extant laws, upcoming laws, legal rulings, fighting in courts, appealing against court decisions etc.

Strident views are the extremist views of either side in any issue and do get the most attention. It does focus the minds of people on where they stand on issues. Most are centrists in fact.

**************************************************

Hello Gerry,

It is a new set of "belief" based on reason, logic, scientific inquiry as often stated by atheists. And atheists do discard what they call as myths and fantasies not based on facts and empirical evidence.

Stopping to collect stamps may mean one now find more interesting things to collect - rare wines, vintage cars, exotic women...

No atheists don't lie here. But I do read about some stating that they may have some problems at the workplace, as do people of minority faiths.

Yes, intelligence and education have never been synonymous with judgment. We should remind our political masters that too.

So you think it was a "kick" I am getting "with condescension, even compassion, on non-believers!" Hey, I have to do my bit for all believers in this "atheist blog". Can't get you guys too comfortable or to think there is an antidote. Don't want you all to be too smug, oops, my bad, too complacent and to do a wee bit of group reflection too rather than just ruminating and reflecting on believers.

Arminius is a civil man who has a strong personal sense of decency in human interaction, human treatment and regard of others. I remember him saying how appalled he is by the treatment of African-Americans, how he recommended me to read Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" when I already had, how he hope Obama will heal the divide in the US.

And how Arminius explained to me on American English terms and usage, how he explained to me on some Americanisms, culture and traditions. How could one not come in and to swoop and swipe for a man like that? A man truly reaching out across oceans and chasms of differences?

**************************************************

Hello E Favorite,

Some atheists do go into generalisations on believers and beliefs, as believers do on atheists and atheism. All this "talk" about how atheists perceive believers as stupid and deluded are in fact, repeating what atheists do say often and in every On Faith threads.

Atheists do likewise notice believers calling them "smug" or "militant", or are akin to communists, or are all going to hell. Some don't quite take to it that too well.

I would not say believers are dismissing everything atheists say on beliefs and believers. More often than not, it is the other way around. As for me, I'm into really silly things said by atheists on anything. Even BGone's posts got interesting since he stop "promoting" and giving links to Hoaxbuster, or to say religion is the work of the devil/satan etc.

As you well know, belief is personal to and personalised by believers. There are degrees and intensity of personal belief and communal belief commitment and participation. Of course believers would not go along with some atheists contention that all belief and religions are bad.

Believers are aware of what is wrong with organised and institutionalised religion which they do seperate from their personal belief and which atheists don't. If one only read On Faith threads, one would realise that not all believers abide by all the tenets, dogmas or creeds of their respective faiths, or to share similar interpretations. And do argue about them much and more.

regards
"J

I dunno what you're talking about, here, Spiderman, but weren't you just deciding you were 'smart' enough to react with glee to the notion that gay people will all go to California so your God can get you off by obliterating people through missile attacks over their sexuality?

"Evangelicals and fundamentalists of all stripes, denominations and religious pursuasions are particularly prone to making absolutist statements regarding the 'truth' that many take as pure fiction. "

Fiction like SOIL TURNING TO BRAIN all by itself. Endless stupid discussion. When will these "intelligent " people learn?

WHEN,WHEN,WHEN?

Well Jihadist, I'm sure you'd agree that if we see our friends and neighbors buying snake oil from a carnival barker for good money, we'd feel compelled to speak up about such nefarious transactions that we feel are not in the best interests of said friends and neighbors! It is really our civic duty, at the very least.

And so it is here On Faith - atheists speaking extemporaneously on matters and beliefs that are felt to be contrary to a reality-based view of life - and especially in so far as those religio-metaphysical views may intrude on the life, liberty and freedom from exploitation of other of our societal neighbors, that do not necessarily share these frequently misbegotten faith-based beliefs - efforts at converting unbelievers are not an atheist goal, but rather a response to those proselytizers that push religion on one and all with equal vigor!

And atheists are surely a humble and even educated lot, when compared to the many raging religionists we see here dripping with prophecies of hellfire and damnation for all unbelievers - even if you've never suffered the misfortune of having been exposed to their precious belief system. In the view of the believer, much of the world is already condemned - no matter how innocent.

Thus, for the Christian fundamentalist and the Muslim fundamentalist alike, the wages of sin for those either unexposed or unconvinced, shall be death and damnation for all eternity, while the true believers prosper in heaven.....

Truly, atheists speak not from a Manifesto, but only from their own personal study and and well-considered observations of the matter at hand...and almost always in an effort to shed light on some preposterous statement made by a pious believer regarding the 'absolute truth' of their beliefs, their bible, their book of revelations, and so forth. Atheists must speak out for the common good!!

Evangelicals and fundamentalists of all stripes, denominations and religious pursuasions are particularly prone to making absolutist statements regarding the 'truth' that many take as pure fiction.

As you say, the truth is out there - and why may we ask are so many believers convinced that they've found it, when so many others have not??

It's relatively easy to have conviction, but a much more difficult proposition to be proven absolutely right.....

Cheers!

Ecumenicalism 101:

Step 1 - Hold some form of nonsense to be holy. Above criticism. That's your sacred cow.

Step 2 - Interact with other people, telling them that your sacred cow is the most true thing in all the world.

Step 3 - Wait for someone to say that it's really just an imaginary cow.

Step 4 - Take grave offense! Cry slander! Heresy! Blasphemy!

Step 5 - Demean the character of whoever told you that your nonsensical belief was nonsense. Consider them beneath you. Morally repugnant. Unclean. Untouchable. Unsaved. Subhuman. Doomed.

Step 6 - Separate yourself from them. Find community among those whose sacred cows are similar to yours.

Andrew wrote "Mr Mark. If I were religious and curious, I'm sure I would come across the writings of Mark Twain sooner or later, and would be influenced by what a perceptive genius like him would make of things religious"

No need Mr. Andrew, just read this :

I hope this answers questions why many in the old testament (including some in the ten commandments) should not be taken literally and not to be read by unbelievers of Christ. That includes all the false religions and atheists. They should not quote the scripture coz they are NOT QUALIFIED to interpret it. It's been a problem since the time of Apostle Paul and here is the reason he gave :

"And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a VEIL on his face. "(Exodus 34:33)

" Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: 13 And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: 14 But THEIR MINDS WERE BLINDED: for until this day remaineth the same VEIL UNTAKEN AWAY IN THE READING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT; which veil is done away in Christ. 15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. 16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. " (2 Corinthians 3:12-16)

"I'd rather Ms. Jacoby and Mr. Berlinerblau put out the first draft though, so as not to embarrass the atheist community. So even believers would not feel embarrassed for the atheist community. Their books are better researched and more scholarly, and their essays are consistently steadier, more level-headed and less polemical and sometimes nonsensical than Harris or Hitchens on their points."

The problem with this argument is that you are placing all atheist view points on the same level. I don't agree with the more strident atheists view points. To lump all of us into the same group is like lumping you and Spidey in the same group because you are all believers. It is neither fair nor realistic, either to you or to me.

J,

since I grant a lot of intelligence and knowledge, historical and otherwise, to you, besides the ability to be sarcastic and use irony as a weapon, I think to define discarding a set of fantasy obligations of a creed as necessarily entering another creed is below your intellectual standard.

Stopping to collect stamps does not mean starting to raise (Easter, lol!) bunnies, whoda thunk!

Even if you don't like it, very obviously, why don't you just leave it at my statement (also that of some others ), even accept it as an honest statement, as honest as you ever will be able to make one, that I (like others) left the socially enforced superstition crowd? Do atheists always lie, even about the fact they are atheists? That seems to be necessary for your mental (=religious) satisfaction.

Intelligence and education have never been synonymous with judgment. Heidegger was very intelligent.

We former believers know all too well the kick believing gives you, even the kick it gives you to look down with condescension, even compassion, on non-believers! So, honestly, we have a lot of empathy into your "reasoning"!

I found Mr Mark’s limerick characteristic of his known point of view and wonder if Arminius presupposes that a respectful relationship with a believer would somehow change that point of view and the expression of it.

All of this talk about how atheists perceive believers as stupid and deluded I sometimes think is mainly an effort to dismiss what everything atheists say about religion. Many of us were religious at one time, sometimes for a long time and know full well our misinformation and delusion were restricted to the area of religious belief.

Anonymous : "You've got to love the humor of the English - the perfect antidote for what ails the religiously self-righteous among us - & my compliments to Jihadist for one of the finest displays of unholy sanctimony in quite some time."

Aha! Need antidotes, eh? Even English humour will do.

"Unholy sanctimony"? Nahh....not having a sainthood in mind. Not qualified anyway. I am sure the Pope/Vatican would have none of it until I got at least baptised, and then to work in slums in third world countries for decades at least.

But thanks anyway. Surely you are not forgetting I'm a self-righteous, moralising religionist in On Faith threads? There is no antidote to believers. They are all around you, and all sorts too. Some of us get all huffy and puffy and stuffy on some atheists' ambiguity on ethics, morals and values, and on race and gender too.

Oh, where would anyone get the notion only atheists are allowed to be sanctimonious or righteous in their belief, er, non-belief viz believers?

I'm waiting for a Godfree Manifesto. Or An American Atheist Platform. Or a Secular Declaration. Or an Anti-theist Plan of Action Against Religion. Why not? There are already common principles shared by atheists. The signatories can include Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. I'm sure they would.

It can have a preamble paragraph perhaps starting as:

"We, who are free from belief in God, and have freedom from religion..."

And a last operative paragraph perhaps as:

"We shall strive forever to clease ourself, all people and our world from grandiose delusions in the supernatural, and religions that opiates the masses and poisons everything."

I'd rather Ms. Jacoby and Mr. Berlinerblau put out the first draft though, so as not to embarrass the atheist community. So even believers would not feel embarassed for the atheist community. Their books are better researched and more scholarly, and their essays are consistently steadier, more level-headed and less polemical and sometimes nonsensical than Harris or Hitchens on their points.

Oh, you should know. Or didn't you already know? We believers are a most sanctimonous lot. Think moral values and culture wars that made you shivers and then to seek temporary escapism into English humour as relief or antidote.

The truth, the reality, is out there. The evangelicals are real and do have a lot of political, economic and cultural clout. Some 80 millions of them alone in the US of various shades.

Some of them came out with an "Evangelical Manifesto". Don't forget the "Philadelphia Platform" of Reform Judaism. Don't under-estimate any manifesto, declaration, platform any religious groups came out with. It will and do have an impact on the group and larger society and especially other faith groups.

Meanwhile, enjoy English humour. It can't hurt you in making you stay safely indoors while us religionists slog on and slug it out among ourselves for the world we want to be in the public square. Very terrifying, no?

Come on. By your fruits we shall know you too, yes?

Cheers
"J"

Well there she is again, the Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist "obfusing" and distracting us from the "fems" of "evangelizing" Islam.

Previously, she has admitted that she was not superstitious but she continues to promote the belief in those "pretty, wingie, flying, talking, fictional thingies" aka angels that are the basis of Islam i.e. without Gabriel, there is no Islam!!!!!!

She also has noted, "all organised and institutionalised religion is human and humanity based with flaws and all, just like humans are" but she refuses to list said flaws for the general population restricting said list for Muslims only. How very strange since she is quite adept at listing the flaws in US politics, other global religions and just about everything else that disturbs her "femsed" upbringing.

We have no restrictions on the listing of said "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) of Islam, so once again for your perusal:

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 Shiites are less than human or Sunnis are less than human depending on what Islamic cult you belong to.

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.

And to help you remember:

O Islam, Islam, violent Islam,
Moha, illiterate and hallucinating,
O Islam, Islam, violent Islam,
Moha greed and lustful, womanizing,
Was he too,

O Islam, O Islam, violent Islam,
Moha, warmongering and hateful,
Was he too,

O Islam, O Islam, violent Islam,
Sunnis of hate, Shiites of late,
Even Pretty Wingie Thingies cannot
Save us from Islam's hate.

Save us from these Islamic FEMs,
Flaws, Errors, Muck and Stench,
They ooze from the rocks of earth,
Like many worms wrenching in death.

Born, Bred, and Brainwashed too,
Whatever, whatever to do?
Truth, Truth, History and Truth,
Let it Ring True, Freedom, Freedom
Freedom at Last and much left to do!!!

Very funny stuff on LiveLeak, Chris Everett. Thanks for the link! You've got to love the humor of the English - the perfect antidote for what ails the religiously self-righteous among us - & my compliments to Jihadist for one of the finest displays of unholy sanctimony in quite some time.

Cheers!!

"J"

"They are, after all, humans, flaws and all. I would probably trust and enjoy the company of most atheists here in real life, except for obvious obsessive-compulsive posters."

Just as I think most of us more civilized atheists would appreciate and enjoy people such as yourself and Arminius in person. I know I would.

Hello Arminius,

Good to see you back here.

Perhaps you should have never let on that you were an atheist before. You are an apostate, an infidel of atheism and some are trying to “reverb” you to atheism.:)

You to Terra : "Be aware that the atheists are on a feeding frenzy."

Let them feast. Everyone is entitled to a feast of frenzy or frenzied feasting. But I’m sure whom they are feeding on. God is invisible after all. If on religion, they would die of delusion overdose. Don’t forget religion is poisonous, so they may die of food poisoning.

And nahhh...I would not say that they are on a feeding frenzy. Just sharing some links for their consumption to sate their minds and souls. They are also just coming here to "repair" from the blogs of faith-affiliated On Faith panelists. A sort of reinforcing and relating to one another exercise.

Quite normal for like-minded people with shared "beliefs" (or non-belief in the case of atheists) to congregate for self and group identification and definition. Just as believers would with regard to others of the same belief.

Interesting reading posts by atheists saying how happy, how free, how fulfilled their life are after they disposed a set of beliefs that had before and subscribe to new ones. It does sound like converts from one faith to another talking on new meaning and clarity in their life after they switch beliefs.

Some words used are also interesting - misguided, reality etc. Just as some believers would use to describe non-believers of their faith. Also interesting to read on "realities" as seen from the perspective of atheists. As narrow as some believers' in cases it turns out. Makes me sometimes wonder what kind of "reality" or “realities” some of them were living in, what kind of personal pressure they had had on matters of belief religion.

They do, ironically, sound like a "misunderstood" and "maligned" group in projecting themselves as humanists whilst barely concealing their universal distaste and dismay for misguided or flawed or stupid or deluded believers – all believers in fact.

It is not a question of whether you trust them, Arminius. It is that they don't trust believers and are very suspicious of all believers due to the belief they have. It is really not your personal problem that some are not, could not, would not see one from another, the sum is greater than the whole, the tree from the forest etc.

I would not take what some atheists wrote about their humanism too seriously. It does seem some do the very proselytising they are averse to when by believers of any faith in On Faith threads except by their fellow non-believers.

Whilst JJ or CCNL is seen as spamming by believers and crossing the line in talking about nuking cities etc, atheists love them and did not see the irony of they themselves fighting back against believers like Canyon Shearer or Thomas Baum talking about the hereafter and hell.

I’ve seen believers fought back against posts by Canyon or Thomas, but I have never seen atheists do on posts by CCNL or JJ. I’d be more worried about fellows about nuking cities rather than those talking about hell or the hereafter. But they do obviously need those fellows more than believers read their posts or are affected by them in anyway in real life.

Just as atheists said they can see belief clearer from the outside and having had been on the inside and such, there is no stopping anyone from seeing atheism and atheists from the outside too. And, in many ways, much simpler, less complex and less challenging less interesting.

After taking off their non-belief, there is only other things to argue – such as whether this or that work of art is belief inspired or otherwise. But of course, one can be equally passionate about what one like or dislike in the arts and have vocal disagreements on them too. .

And so my friend, don‘t take to heart nonsense written by some atheists on reality, being misguided, be deluded and such. It is just this simple - saying someone else is stupid, deluded, idiotic, misguided does not make them any smarter, less deluded or not misguided on life and reality. Or any less convoluted on ethics, morals and values.

They are, after all, humans, flaws and all. I would probably trust and enjoy the company of most atheists here in real life, except for obvious obsessive-compulsive posters.

man bites dog
dog bites man
dog eat dog
man eat man

Cheers
"J"

Dear Pseudo and Bewildful,

I was morified to learn that Pseudo's post had been blocked NLP and Bandler-wise and would much like to learm more. Can you try again, Pseudo?

As you so aptly put it, "Time flies like an arrow," gallops like Dirk, is swif winged, etc. You will forgive the long delay in my post, space-time-compression-wise.

Bewildful, you are ever in my indeterminate thoughts, thesis-wise, and I am hopeful that there have been no new (un)developments, aporetically speaking.

Regard,
Merry Anonymous

Concerned.

Be sure to follow the link posted by Chris, below.

In fact everyone should.

Here we have an atheist who calls a spade a spade.

Back on the topic with again a refresher:

Expanding the definition of evangelicals: (new entries found on global Google)

1. "Propheteers" for profit e.g.

Mohammed and Paul and TV preacher men.

2. Militants with a religious zeal for a cause. e.g. Muslims, Zionists, Sunnis, Shiites, members of the IRA, .

3. Militants who erroneously follow the "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) of a religion.

Mr. Mark, Andrew, Ender, Anonymouse,

Great posts!!! I have nothing to add except to repost this link:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=418_1176494781

Hello, Terra,

I'm glad you are here, nice to hear a friendly voice.

Be aware that the atheists are on a feeding frenzy.

Also be aware that J J, that infamous spammer, is back.

Arminius

Josevs. Very funny. I love Evilgelicals,and xtra-terror-strial.

Sign me up for a round trip.

neal,

The Priest plunges the candle into the water...lol. That is so Pagan.

I do not know that Catholics did that. We bless our water for our use, usually monthly...and consecrate our Candles for the year. Candlemas.

terra

O No. He's BACK! Goodnight all.

Ender;

I enjoyed your post. You are quite amazing to have come through what must have been hell, and landed on your feet, sane despite everything.

Your comments gave me a lot to think about.

Mr Mark. If I were religious and curious, I'm sure I would come across the writings of Mark Twain sooner or later, and would be influenced by what a perceptive genius like him would make of things religious.
For instance here he is on the bible;

"During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after doing its duty in but a lazy and indolent way for eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumbscrews, and firebrands, and set about its Holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood.

Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. Who discovered that there was no such thing as a witch - the priest? the parson? No. These never discover anything. At Salem the parson clung pathetically to his witch text after the laity had abandoned it in remorse and tears for the crimes and cruelties it has persuaded them to do. The parson wanted more blood , more shame, more brutalities, it was the unconsecrated laity that stayed his hand.
There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell-fire is gone, but the text remains; infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books but the texts that authorised them remain."

Mark Twain, "Bible Teaching and Religious Practice" as quoted in "The Portable Atheist" page 121. pub.by DaCapo Press.

I guess the more curious one is, the more one would delve into what the 'great minds' have concluded over time, from Aristotle to Mark Twain and Carl Sagan.

The same old story. Atheism and stupidity never separate.

HOW DID SOIL TURN INTO BRAIN? What is so hard to understand about that?

From the answers I got, I came to a conclusion that ALL PEOPLE (all creation really) ARE INTELLIGENT. THEY ALL BELIEVE IN GOD BUT ARE TRYING TO CONVINCE THEMSELVES THAT THERE IS NO GOD. (On the other hand, it's the "believers" who made silly answers.)

In fact almost all if not all who answered intelligently were atheists.

Apostle James said that even the devil believe in God. How accurate.

You can't fool yourself folks.

Dear Andrew -

When Mary C calls atheists "incurious," it's just a programmed defensive action kicking in. Ditto when Spidey calls people "stupid" and others complain about "the same old, tired arguments from the atheists," arguments that so many Xians seem to find "boring" even though they've never even examined said arguments.

You see, it all comes with the religious indoctrination. If you can delude yourself into believing something is of no consequence to you, then it is of no consequence to anybody else.

Were religionists ostriches, we all know where their heads would be.

I get the same reactions from my kids. Things are "boring" and "stupid," and those are always the things they don't like to deal with...like homework and household chores. But even my kids get over their "boring" positions if I take the time to talk with them about it.

I wish the same could be said of the religionists (of course, there are exceptions to this rule).

I notice Mary Cunningham earlier commented that atheists are incurious; how very strange. It was curiosity that led me (and I'm sure others) away from religion and gods and the non-existing world of the supernatural, and into the excitement of philosophy and science and learning and discovering, about the real world.

Religion, it seems to me, closes the door on further inquiry. OK. God did it. End of story.
But as God DIDN'T do it, it opens up a world of awesome possibilities, and exploration. As a species we continue to learn and break free from the shackles of superstition, and dogma.
It is the only way to go.

come from a family of evangelicals with four preachers between my siblings and first cousins. Three are fundamentalist one is not, two are Pentacostal and believe they speak in tongues, and that public trance induced seizures are evidence of the presence of a holy spirit.

All are evangelical. All believe their view of god is the only correct view. All believe that anyone that does not share their faith in their god in is hell bound, and serves satan. You either serve god or satan and their is no alternative.

There are Christians that do not share this world view, BUT I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT CAN BE TRUE OF EVANGELICALS. Otherwise why the drive to convert the world?

That conviction that only their world view can be correct and humans with any other views, regardless of the good deads, benevolence, kindness, and humanity are by nature evil, makes evangelicals, whether christian or muslim, intollerant, anti-social, and inherantly disrespectful of the human race.

The very belief that humans are inherantly evil and encapable of great goodness and highly ethical behavior is detrimental to the whole of the human race.

How can we ever coexist as a species when large parts of the species share convictions that the rest are not capable and worthy of goodness, and goodness in spirit? What was the Third Reich but the ultimate expression of Evangelicalism?

How has GWB's Crusade been sold to a blind American public except as spreading a superior world view to nonbelievers?

I don't care about your beliefs, but when they include the view that anyone with a different belief is hellbound and an agent of evil, you have become an impediment to the advancement of a cooperative, tolerant and ethical human species.

I hear christians state that secular humanism is a religion, and public support of secular values are evangelical. As a secular humanist I can only know that my efforts to promote those values are only to promote an environment where disrespect and demonization of other humans is removed from our vocabulary and mindset. If your religion promotes those traits and values, it holds the seeds of every war and every disrimination that humanity has suffered since the first shaman led his tribe into battle to take the resources of another tribe.

Religiious intolerance has not served the human race, nor led to and end of war, hate or tribalism.

This website claims to be a place where interfaith and nonfaith dialogue can be carried on in honesty and respect. That can only be true when participants truly believe that the beliefs of others while not shared, do not make those expressing them inherantly evil.

The only things that make humans evil are hatred, intollerance and a willingness to force your world view on another with discrimination or force.

Anonymous wrote:

"...the time has come to take a long hard look at the irrationality and immorality of teaching children to believe in a supernatural world of Gods and devils and harp playing angels; which they will be stuck with for life. It can't be allowed to continue without clashing more and more with science and reality."

Excellent point.

It occurs to me that if the religionists could somehow realize that there is plenty of mystery, beauty and spirituality to the natural world and universe without any need whatsoever for their imagined gods that they would feel much better about considering life without the gods.

Truth be told, many religionists know this, but they are kept from letting go of the shackles of religion by their fear of the eternal pain and suffering that their religion promises to unbelievers. They're simply unwilling (or, due to their lifelong indoctrination, unable) to let go of the fear, a fear that has always been and always will be religion's most-effective customer retention device.

But, you're right. Reality isn't going away any time soon.

I know Mr Mark, I know ...but even if just one curious fella out there somewhere reads it and says "Yeah, makes sense to me.I gotta think about that."
Then my work is done, as Jesus would say.

S.C.Crommet

I'm an atheist and a parent of five children now grown up. I did not rear them to be atheists, but they knew where I stood. I would drive them to church or Sunday school anytime they asked, just like I did for soccer games etc. But they didn't ask too often and church never became a habit. I wouldn't want to raise a child to believe in a lot of supernatural mumbo-jumbo anyway, so of course I wouldn't encourage religion; but I didn't discourage it either.
If I had it over I think I would be more opposed to religion now than I was then. The older I get the more I resent faith based 'thinking' as patently ridiculous and dangerous in this modern age.
If 9/11 taught us nothing else, it taught us that religion is criminally stupid. And that the time has come to take a long hard look at the irrationality and immorality of teaching children to believe in a supernatural world of Gods and devils and harp playing angels; which they will be stuck with for life. It can't be allowed to continue without clashing more and more with science and reality.
Something's gotta give, and it won't be reality.

Andrew -

Re: the Templeton quotes.

Be ready for the believers to opine that believing in such a god is a "matter of faith," never mind the horrors that god engages in as his SOP.

Of course, the same believers will let their god off the hook by claiming quite falsely that human beings have "free will."

And round and round it goes...

more from Templeton.

"If there is a loving God why does he permit - much less create - earthquakes, droughts, floods, tornadoes, and other natural disasters which kill hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children every year?
How can a loving omnipotent God permit - much less create - encephalitis, cerebral palsy, brain cancer, leprosy, Alzheimer's, and other incurable illnesses to inflict millions of men, women, and children, most of whom are decent people.
How could a loving Heavenly Father create an endless Hell and,over the centuries consign millions of people to it because they do not or cannot or will not accept certain religious beliefs? And, having done so,how could he torment them FOREVER?"

from "A Farewll to God" by Charles Templeton, quoted in "The Portable Atheist" page 285.

The following is by Charles Templeton, who once was Billy Graham's partner in evangelicalism, but became an atheist.

"Is it not foolish to close one's eyes to the reality that much of the Christian faith is simply impossible to accept as fact? And is it not a fundamental error to base one's life on theological concepts formulated centuries ago by relatively primitive men who believed that the world was flat, that Heaven was "up there" somewhere, and that the universe had been created and was controlled by a jingoistic and intemperate diety who would punish you forever if you did not behave exactly as instructed?
Listed below is a repetition of some of the questions raised in the pages of "A Farewell To God". Put them to yourself.
Is it not more likely thst had you been born in Cairo you would be a Muslim and, as a billion people do, would believe that 'there is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet?
If you had been born in Calcutta would you not in all probability be a Hindu, and as a billion people do, accept the Vedas and the Upanishads as sacred scriptures and hope sometime to dwell in Nirvana?
Is it not probable that, had you been born in Jerusalem, you would be a Jew and, as some 15 million people do, believe that that Yahweh is God and that the Torah is God's word?
Is it not likely that had you been born in Peking, you would be one of the millions who accept the teachings of the Buddha or Confucious or Lao Tse and strive to follow their teachings and examples?
Is it not likely that you, the reader are a Christian (or Muslim etc) because your parents were before you?"

From "A Farewell to God" by Charles Templeton, as reprinted in "The Portable Atheist". page 285. Pub.DaCapo press.

"Anonymous:

My guess is that most non-believers were once believers. Few people are actually raised to be atheist. I never heard of anybody raised that way."

It's probably more common than you might think. I, for one, was raised in a non-religious family. Both my father and mother were non-believers. I and my three siblings, now mostly in our 40s are still non-religious.

I suspect that those of us raised that way are probably less militant about our lack of belief because we've never felt a need to distance ourselves from something that has never been aprt of our lives and for which we've never had anything but academic interest.

I find the whole concept of theology of no interest what-so-ever. I'm interested in religion on in a historical and political way, and that due to what I see has been its potential to threaten what I believe in: a rational, secular government that deals with the real world in a way to benefit my fellow citizens in the only life we really know.

My guess is that most non-believers were once believers. Few people are actually raised to be atheist. I never heard of anybody raised that way.

Most atheists have tried religion and simply don't buy it. If you ask yourself "Do I really believe in God? and you answer "No, I don't think so", then you're an atheist.

I feel atheists may be a bit too curious and sceptical to simply accept everything they're told, without checking things out further. (God does not stand up well under scrutiny).But otherwise they're like everyone else.

Mr Mark,

Apology accepted. I'm over it, I move on. I leave this behind. I look forward to discussing music with you.

Arminius

Sorry about the clipped-off sentence in my last post. I kept getting error messages when I tried to post the thing, and our wireless connection at this end is acting up today. I had to retype my post a couple of times and things got squirrelly.

Here's what an atheist really is:

"An atheist's reputation for malevolence is undeserved. They're neither warped nor evil at heart. They don't hate religion, just religion's absurdities. They're just as sensitive and soft-hearted as the next guy, but they hide their vulnerability beneath a crust of skepticism. They ease the pain by turning incredulity into humor. . . . . . They attack superstition because it devalues genuine reason. . . . . . Nature, having failed to equip them with a servicable denial mechanism, has endowed them with astute perception and sly wit.
Atheists are mockers and debunkers whose sarcasm is a symptom rather than a disease. They can't compromise their standards and can't manage the suspension of disbelief necessary for feigned religiosity. Their awareness is a curse.
Perhaps atheists have gotten a bad rap in the same way that the messenger is blamed for the message: They have the temerity to comment on the human condition without apology. They not only refuse to applaud delusion, they howl it down with morose glee. Their versions of the truth unsettle us, and we hold it against them, even though they soften it with humor."

Dear Daniel, Arminius & Steve -

Thanks for your comments.

Well, what can I say? I'm sorry if I offended Arminius with my poem. That wasn't my intention. I was just being myself, the way I always have been on this blog. What you see with me is what you get.

I disagree with Mary C that I'm like the scorpion from the famous story, for I never pull my punches in matters religious. I don't suck people in by agreeing with their religious views, only to strike back in some verbal ambush. I've never, ever agreed with the silliness expressed in any and every religious view out there.

Does that mean that there isn't agreement and common ground between us when it comes to matters of music, the arts and even what beers we prefer? Heavens, no! In fact, that's where - IMHO - the REAL pedal hits the metal in human relations. I say that because I believe all belief in the supernatural is unreal. So, while I can easily have an intellectual discussion about religious beliefs, it's still a discussion based (from my end, at least)in pure fantasy. One doesn't find

Arminius feels betrayed and hurt by my irreverent poem. Well, this speaks once again to DITLD's point that we THINK we know each other here, but we really don't. Had I imagined that my poem would have caused such a reaction, I may well have foregone the posting. Believe me, I've done it many times in the past on this blog. If you think my posts are over-the-line here, you should see the ones I don't post!

That said, I stand by my little limerick. If nothing else, it's led this thread into a different subject for discussion, and that's what this blog is all about. And, I must say, that I don't think Arminius would have been offended if it wasn't his particular ox (god) being gored by my post. Had my limerick been a response to a post about one of the phallic/male seed created the universe gods, he would have chuckled along with the worst of us in the atheist crowd. But as Yahweh/Jesus IS Arminius's god, and as Arminius views his god as being a very real entity, and as his particular god isn't positioned as one of the ejaculating gods, he took personal offense.

Point taken. Apology offered for my rudeness, intended or not.

Perhaps Arminius and I can continue our cyber friendship at some level. I guess it's up to him. In the meanwhile, let me be clear that I do find religious beliefs incredibly silly. But let me also say that that doesn't mean I feel people who hold those beliefs are beneath me or dumbasses. Hell, most of my immediate family holds the same beliefs as does Arminius, yet I consider none of them to be beneath me, even as I do consider their faith misplaced and their beliefs the height of silliness. They're simply misguided.

Gotta go.

Thank you Steven...and FWIW I find this particular blog not to be too bad, but then not to sound like Hillary Clinton--ugh! disgusting woman--my hide is probably somewhat tougher than a gent like Arminius.

The worst--really the worst!--I've encounted I didn't even see. The posts on "Your Comments" to me from L and S were so bad they were blocked, Guess the second worse was from a faux Catholic who called me all sorts of names before pulling on her piety shawl and saying she would pray for me. Pontificating prune! Then another (real this time) Catholic from Wyoming came in and told me not to post here! Pathetic, eh?

That's when I decided to continue. I've been out of Ireland a long time now but there's still enough Irish left in this girl to do the opposite of what some self-important schoolmarmish type 'commands'.

Daniel ITLD,

Here's what a curmudgeon really is:

" A curmudgeon's reputation for malevolence is undeserved. They're neither warped nor evil at heart. They don't hate mankind, just mankind's absurdities. They're just as sensitive and soft-hearted as the next guy, but they hide their vulnerability beneath a crust of misanthropy. They ease the pain by turning hurt into humor. . . . . . They attack maudlinism because it devalues genuine sentiment. . . . . . Nature, having failed to equip them with a servicable denial mechanism, has endowed them with astute perception and sly wit.
Curmudgeons are mockers and debunkers whose bitterness is a symptom rather than a disease. They can't compromise their standards and can't manage the suspension of disbelief necessary for feigned cheerfulness. Their awareness is a curse.
Perhaps curmudgeons have gotten a bad rap in the same way that the messenger is blamed for the message: They have the temerity to comment on the human condition without apology. They not only refuse to applaud mediocrity, they howl it down with morose glee. Their versions of the truth unsettle us, and we hold it against them, even though they soften it with humor."

- JON WINOKUR (I don't know who he is, but he's right.)

By the way,

my last 2 posts were held for review, so I thought, they were gone. But there they are. Maybe the glitches have been workded out.

Arminius

Everybody has their own special traits and predispostions. Everyboyd has their chains that people like to pull; everygody has their buttons that people like to push. And alot of people, as they age, look back at all the ways they could have done things differetnly, and they judge themselves, with recrimination, and they become bitter. I see this tendency in my friends, and in my own family. I know someone, not very old, who snarls when he speaks, even when he is not angry, because he has let himself fall into a general funk of bitterness about life.

And, I feel it happening to me too. But I don't want to be like that. I try not to be. I hope you are not really going to be a curmudgeon, although I guess we need curmudgeon's too. My grandmother used to say, "it takes all kinds to make a world." Look at Andy Rooney, Curmudeion-Superstar!

I don't think Mr. Mark had any bad intention when he wrote that poem. But some of the other posts that other people wrote were a little mean. That is what I meant when I said that people here don't have manners that they would have in person.

It is sort of like when people drive their cars; they are impatient and unruly towards the people in the other cars, even though they are just people too, trying to get somewhere.

Daniel ITLD,

Thanks for your kind thoughts.

One of my faults is that I am too trusting. One would think that I should have learned by now, at my advanced age. Well, I got a lesson here. From now on, my guard is always up, and I will watch very carefully what I write.

I think I have become a born-again curmudgeon.

Arminius

Dear Arminius

We do not really know each here and we are not really friends. For what this blog is, we have become sort of familiar with each other, and used to each other, but, it is nohere near the same as being friends with someone in person.

We tell each other our deep thoughts and feelings, things we would not normally tell our friends. And we are alot meaner to each other too, and treat each other more harshly than we do our real friends. And we don't have manners with each other the way we would with real friends, and we do not edit or censor ourselves, the way we might do if we knew each other personally.

We all thought we knew E Favorite; most of thought he was a man, oops, I mean, most of us thought she was a man; this just shows how little we really know about each other.

Sometimes, I get upset too, and into little arguments with other people on this blog. I never thought that could happen to me; I never thought I could get so wrapped up in this stuff so much, to care what these virtual stranger-friends must think of me.

I guess I am now to my last point. When you are upset with someone, it is usually because you care about them.

And after all the limericks and rhyme, text and commentaries, that famous quote still rules the day:

"Until the koran is deflawed, no one (especially a Christian evangelical) is safe !!!!"

From Arminius morphing into Armadillo? Ready to bite?

Arminius,
I love it: "We and We." You said it in a nutshell--thanks.

Ok, I'm back. Another interloper on an atheist blog. Another moving target. But better armored this time.

I once said here, in some verse, "It's not us or them, but WE and WE". I guess I was wrong.

MaryCunningham:

I appreciate your writing and find you to be very fun to read.

I expect, though, that Mr. Mark would agree that it's not PEOPLE who are the object of the ridicule or skepticism, it's the belief or belief system. To the extent that someone would proclaim "I am what I believe," then that line might get pretty blurry.

I guess it would be appropriate to say that no "belief" should automatically demand or earn respect. Maybe that's the thrust of the "new atheist" voice. I think we could all agree on that, to some significant degree. After that, a "truth claim" should be fair game in the realm of debate, reason, empiricism, skepticism, review, and accountability.

And on another note, I don't see the need to differentiate or to point out that "even an atheist" enjoys good music or good art, and "even a Catholic" can be human. It's a false dichotomy.

It's that precise division between "us" and "the world" that churches and religious proclaim that seems to be the tribal dividing line, and which seems to me to be the cause of so much problematic to our common good. On that I agree with "new atheists:" us vs. them, moral vs. amoral, "values" vs "no values," black vs. white, certainty claims, without wiggle room, divide.

Ideas will be criticized, and to the extent we define ourselves by these ideas, it will feel all the more personal.

Regarding religious sexual imagery:

At the Catholic Easter Vigil mass a priest blesses a large vessel of water intended for use in the coming year's ceremonies. By way of accomplishing this, he plunges a large Pascal candle, symbolizing Christ, repeatedly into the vessel while also pouring blessed oil into the water.

Ah so. This is an atheist blog? One in an On Faith Forum? No one told atheists they were in a blog of On Faith panelists associated with a faith group either. WaPo should have a blog advisory - For atheists only. Oh, so atheistic of some to think of Arminius as them, them, them perspective instead of his.

More bad very short verses then, for snippy snappy self-absorbed self regarding atheists towards Arminius and then some.

this is no blog
for atheists to hog
everyone is in this bog
just to mist up the fog

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

there is no God
there is no God
........but God
Oh God
Oh my God
Dear God
Good God
Where got God?
We got God!
Great is God
Good is God

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

who is thinking
who is unthinking
who is mincing
who is flincing
who is blinking
who is stinking
who is reeking
who is retching
who is who is who is
a blink blank look and hiss

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

i am evil
i am the devil
i am incivil
i am a boll weevil

i am i am i am i am
i am not i am not i am not
i ram i ham i vamp to a knot
i wham i stamp i spam
a wham bam ram slam

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

i want to be free
i want to be me
i want to let all see me
i want to speak for a fee

i want to bare my looks
i want to put out hooks
i want to sell my books
i want to do whatever it took

i want i want i want i want

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

fly and soar
yell and roar
whack that oar
and be like a boar

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

nor here nor there
of everywhere and here
of everyone and no one
i am one as you are one
i am someone somewhere
i am of everyone and everywhere
and yet i am one just one
as you are too

.....and Mary Cunningham, thanks for that TS Elliot piece, "Little Gidding" meant for Arminius. I had almost forgotten it.

Cheers

"J"

Dear Arminius,

A scorpion and a frog were on one side of the river hoping to reach the other. The scorpion proposed to the frog: “I’ll jump on your back, if you don’t mind. I’m light and that way we’ll both get across.” The frog agreed and they entered the river. Halfway across the scorpion stung the frog and as they were both drowning the frog cried out “Why did you do that? Now we are both going to drown.” The scorpion answered: “I couldn’t help it. It’s what I do.”

Not to pass judgment because Mr Mark sounds like a good guy, a good musician and someone who can compartmentalize. But you cannot have failed to have noticed that many atheists hold believers in contempt and MrM is no exception. Every once and a while he will sting, nothing personal, of course. What sounds blasphemous to you will sound funny to him and he’ll go ahead. And, after all, this is the blog for atheists, however witty, droll and opera-loving they might be. Hang around here and get stung from time to time. Law of numbers, isn’t it? Two, maybe three believing keepers , twenty, maybe thirty, maybe three hundred!—atheist bees.
Truth be told, it’s always been easy for me to versify, but I usually refrain. I only wanted to enter something just to show the vast crowd here that Catholics can also be poets, and good ones—not me, of course, but Shakespeare.

Anyway, as an antidote, I would propose some real poetry (and I’ll end with it). This describes my journey well for I have not always been a Catholic:

With the drawing of this Love
And the voice of the Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

TS Eliot “Little Gidding”

All the best,
Mary Cunningham

And after all the limericks and rhyme, text and commentaries, that famous quote still rules the day:

"Until the koran is deflawed, no one is safe!!!!"

Arminius,

also respecting your pervasively lauded civility: Your own "conversion" proves that the whole religious "truth" agenda is completely arbitrary. Your life was no less valuable before your "spiritual" conversion. With a similar "Damascus" experience you might just as well change back into an honest, "spiritual" enlightened atheism, without losing neither your dignity, your soul, your intellect, or any part of your social, mental and emotional forces.

With most atheists, like me, the change was the other way around: After the usual cultural socialization (aka as brain-washing) I finally arrived at the liberating insight that if ever I want to look into the mirror without blushing for joining others' unproven and unprovable absurdity systems I must think for myself, using the possibilities and accepting and trying to expand the limits of my capabilities - an almost "religious" feeling. I call it human dignity.

I am free, and I feel privileged and very happy to be able to think for myself.

...After all, this is an atheist blog!

Poor poor Arminius. Someones been taking pot shots at his faith and now hes had to go to bed and rest awhile until he's all better. Its such a shock to the system when ones belief is handled without kid gloves and someone calls the absurd absurd.

Get a grip Arminius. Maybe there really is no god.
After all its not a given, or we wouldn't still be arguing about it thousands of years later. And maybe a cutting comment or two will make you consider how silly religion and the god thing really is, and you can be free of it too.
It is a curse.

If you choose to believe in the supernatural you can expect a certain amount of ridicule; it comes with the turf; surely you must know that.

Dear Arminius,

Sleep well, my friend. Yours is a great name, indeed. Religion does produce them. When I studied Judaism, I learned of Akiva, another great great soul. In fact, I'd wager great men and women abound, even now, within and without the church, synagogue, mosq, etc.

It's spring. Time for renewal, pilgrimage and such. Atheists can be too much. They sometimes lack the gentle touch. They believe themselves trod upon by this or that religeeon.

Civility is hard to maintain, when someone's foot is on your brain.

The idea is tolerance, an enlightened pluralism, respect for religions other than one's own, for atheism, and agnosticism. And for those who choose atheism, allow religious persons, the right to belief as they wish. Conversionism, I maintain does sorely injure the working brain.

All I ask, myself, is the secular state guaranteed Constitutionally.

More brings us all together than separates us. After all, we poets, all of us, are the unacknowledged legistators of the world.

M. Anonymous

Merry Anonymous : Why not, then, remove your claws from my throat, and, if I may speak for Pseudo, from that throat, as well, and proceed (ironically) upon your way?

Moi : Claws on your throat? Let Pseudo speaks for himself/herself. I don't believe I have commented on any of Pseudo's posts.

Merry Anonymous : Even as I place fingers to keyboard, I sense the satire draining from your comments.

Moi : Satires, ironies, parodies and spoofs may seem to be done in jest and for fun, and in fact, many are fun to do, but are really, really serious.

Have no fear or to feel threatened by anyone here. I am not "against" you or am "after" you. Only commenting on some matters raised in your posts. You can and are free to chose to ignore my posts re your posts as I am not promising not to comment on some points you raised in your posts which I find interesting. This is an open blog after all, not a private chatroom.

Cheers
"J"

Jihadist,

I know where Sabah is. I have been there. No, I'm not speculating about you--no need. More to the point, I am otherwise engaged. Is that what so troubles you about me?

I am glad you allow that we all may have fun. Why not, then, remove your claws from my throat, and, if I may speak for Pseudo, from that throat, as well, and proceed (ironically) upon your way?
Even as I place fingers to keyboard, I sense the satire draining from your comments.

I have no idea what you find so threatening in a Merry Anonymity such as I, nor, and I mean no offense, do I care to dwell on the matter. Good luck to you.

M. Anonymous

Hello Daniel In the Lion's Den,

Yes, I think Arminius has gone to sleep. Your midnight is my noon. It's my lunchtime now.

Arminius has a parameter of personal decency which he abides by, but not others, including moi, in On Faith threads.

**************************************************

Arminius,

Be back come back back back
not all of us are full of tact
nor shy from word thumbtacks
to spike posts as just attacks

Dear ole Arminius

I assume you have probably gone to bed by now. But maybe you will see this tomorrow.

I think you will feel better after a good night's sleep. Sometimes, that helps more than anything else. Maybe that is what sleep is for, to zero out all the troubles of the day, so they don't pile up too heavy.

Nahh....Not at all we will watch what you tell us to from "Anonymouse" or anyone. We are all going to watch and eat Imam Biyaldi. Hopefully you will accept that. But continue to be hopefully hopeful.

But some people's "poetic" effort have slightly improved!

"The truth will set your free" - CIA motto.
Ironic.

O Islam, Islam, violent Islam,
Moha, illiterate and hallucinating,
O Islam, Islam, violent Islam,
Moha greed and lustful, womanizing,
Was he too,

O Islam, O Islam, violent Islam,
Moha, warmongering and hateful,
Was he too,

O Islam, O Islam, violent Islam,
Sunnis of hate, Shiites of late,
Even Pretty Wingie Thingies cannot
Save us from O Islam's hate.

Save us from these Islamic FEMs,
Flaws, Errors, Muck and Stench,
They ooze from the rocks of earth,
Like worms of wrench and death.

Born, Bred, and Brainwashed too,
Whatever, whatever to do?
Truth, Truth, History and Truth,
Let it Ring True, Freedom, Freedom
Freedom at Last and much left to do!!!

Hello, hello, hello Merry Anonymous,

You : "You disappoint, Jihadist. I am sorry. I used to look forward to your posts."

Ummmm..... Don't be sorry. I never asked for, nor expect an apology from you. Oh, let's have fun then?

Surely, no one here is really looking for approval by anyone on their views?

You : "Again I don't see the irony in the genocide on this content or what continues apace Sabah (not genocide), which some other anonymous has evidently taken an interest in."

By the way, it is Arawaks who were the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean/West Indies. Sabah and Sarawak are states in East Malaysia.

Do have fun as I do. All sorts of fun here in different flavours and tastes.

And what!? Reduced to speculations on me?

Cheers

"J"

Anonymouse,

Danke Schoen!! The LeakView commentary was excellent. Hopefully The Jihadist, Victoria, Mo, Ahmed from Bahrain and John Esposito (and the other "bought off Islamophiles" at Georgetown) will also watch and make comment on.

Said the Frenchman to his English maid,
"Je t'adore, je t'adore ..."

"Very well," said she to him
"I'll shut the door
If you would but say to me, your maid
These words: 'I'll love you, forever more.' "

"I can't write a good poem," Daniel coughed,
Then the wrote quite a gem! Who'da thought?
His admirers are legion,
For a very good reason -
He won't write about gods jerking off.

I have to sympathize with poor old Arminius having his personal beliefs slandered. It ain't right I tell you; that others should have the effrontery to make light of ones deeply held and cherished beliefs is really a bit much. I'm all for free speech and everything but one should draw a line as far as beliefs are concerned. I can understand Arminius's deep hurt and surprise that mr Mark should turn on him like that and openly disagree with his religious convictions and belief in the invisible skygod and life everlasting.
Its insensitive, like taking a child's teddybear away.
Shame on you Mr Mark.

DILTD,

Bravo! Well done!

Merrier Anonymous

Like a wind-swept hieroglyphic inscription
My lost love for you shall be
More ancient, still, than some Egyptian
Tomb locked tight, without a key.

Dear Bewildful,

You wrote: "Thank you for "Invictus II." I am glad you kept yourself safe. I did too, I confess, but from a holy order not quite so high up on the totem pole. Blood lusty, yes. The religion of love, their alibi."

Please accept my sincere apologies Language Sportsmen Fellowship-wise for missing "Invictus," "Invictus II," and what you have written. This, I am sure Pseudo would agree, is not the moment for persiflage.

One doesn't know what to say. I have had my own experiences being held captive in my youth, but, I, too, excaped what others did not. That is not what turned me away from religion, or even from Christianity. Note: I do not mean Catholicism.
How I then became interested in religion from a quite different perspective is a long story.

At all events, I am sorry, sorry for the whole bloody mess, for the writer of "Invictus II," for us all, for those of faith in religious doctrines and those of faith in other things. Damned sorry.

Not-so-Merry Anonymous

DILTD,

You certainly can dream up those poems. You wrote a poem, and it was great. Just do it and don't think about it. NOthing to be jealous about, nothing whatever. JUst have fun.

Merry Anonymous

"a model of public life which reserves the top tier for cosmopolitan secular liberals, and the lower tier for local religious believers."

This is part of the persecution narrative that many Christians embrace, apparently from the early days of Christianity through modern times. It sounds similar to the grievances that some Muslims complain about concerning the western world's treatment of Islam (some of which may be justified, such as colonialism following WWI and the establishment of Israel in Arab lands, although much of narrative we often hear is that if Israel didn't exist everything would be hunkey dorey). Come to think of it, all three Abrahamic faiths and their offshoots (Mormons anyone) have a strong sense of persecution, even in places where they are the obvious first tier (the Jews in Israel, the Christians in the U.S. and the Muslims throughout much of Central Asia).

What is so appealing (to those allegedly persecuted) and appalling (to supposedly “coercive secularists”) about a persecution narrative is that it absolves people of any responsibility for their own, often self-inflicted, circumstances, which then lays the foundation for attacks (violent and otherwise) against scapegoats and other accused perpetrators of the alleged persecution. If anyone wants an example, just look at every Mel Gibson movie since The Patriot (Braveheart, The Passion, Apocalypto). Poor, peace loving people unjustly suffer terrible tribulations (all the while trying to turn the other cheek) at the hands of their evil oppressors, which then justifies our hero (Mel/Jesus Christ) meeting out cruel but warranted justice, at which point he is martyred.

Our poor, persecuted American Christians are suffering far worse than anywhere else in the world.

Jihadist,

Again I don't see the irony in the genocide on this content or what continues apace Sabah (not genocide), which some other anonymous has evidently taken an interest in. There is irony in Casas, whom you would do well to read. There irony is in you, whom you might also want to read.

I have no empathy with and am not amused by the upper classes in developing nations, with the exception of those who are putting themselves on the line, a line you are nowhere near.

What saddens me is the personalizing I see in your post. Do you take offense at the fun Pseudo, Bewidful, and I are having? Is your sense of your self as an ironist, as a great wit threatened? I'd say pity, Irony and pity went out in the 1920s, as you know.

I cannot speak for Pseudo and Bewildful, but I do suspect that they, like yours truly, are having fun. Please don't take that as a personal affront.

There are others posting here far wittier than I. Why then am I such a particular problem for you? Pseudo, as well, it would seem, regardfully.
Is Bewildful all right?

You disappoint, Jihadist. I am sorry. I used to look forward to your posts.

"We don't insult atheists who think they're smarter than we are"

Oh. Spring break turning into a spring fling-flung.

Or course atheists are smarter than believers. They are all straight A students and MENSA members and not deserving of believers' irrational, illogical, unreasonable and baseless insults.

Yes, Arminius does not deserve it. He is a spiritual believer any atheist or believer, regardless of faith, would never mind being in the same foxhole. Anyone can insult me all they want here.

I believe fairies, Santa and elves exist. I saw them on TV.

Cheers
"J"

Concerned the Christian etcetra etcetra.

Don't miss this. It's masterly.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=418_1176494781

Daniel in the Lion's Den,
Just start to type, or use a pen.
Do compose a word or four,
then do it again, and add some more.
If, perchance, the words do rhyme,
The lines you write will be sublime!

I get so angry at these atheists who are so rude and insensitive as to insult the devoutly religious amongst us. We don't insult atheists who think they're smarter than we are , just because they can't see the God who is right there in front of them if only they'd open their eyes and let Him in.

God is as obvious as the air we breathe and we can't see that either. Without God you end up in a spiritual vacuum.

Arminius doesnt deserve having his faith insulted and disagreed with by folks he's here to chat with. It aint neighborly. And he's perfectly entitled to believe anything he darn well wants to believe - logic bedamned. This is America! I know folks who believe in Fairies. Its their prerogitive.
Of course ther's a God. Thomas Baum can testify to that.

DITLD wrote "When I read Merry Anomymous, I believe in Creation.But when I read Spiderman, I believe in evolution"

Yes, I noticed that. It's called twisted mind. I had a hard time understanding you myself.

Mr. Mark wrote "why not apply the same free-ride in the evidence department for scientific claims as you allow for Biblical claims?"

I don't give any subject matter a "free-ride". I give both science and religion the same treatment. I don't believe in any magic. What people consider as "magic" in the bible are metaphors like "talking" snake. In evolution, they don't treat it as metaphor when they say that the soil turn into brain all by itself.

Oh ye Merry Anonymous

Don't get sarcasm and irony? On the Fijian cannibal story on how the colonialists regard the natives? Tough. Should I disregard that?

Did Columbus destroyed all the West Indies Arawaks on his first encounter? Need to Google it up? Or do you prefer books?

Ah yes, what to do? My maternal side are the imperialistic ones. My paternal side are the colonised ones. My paternal grandfather died fighting against the Dutch for Indonesia's independence. They killed members of his family to take over their land for coffee plantations. Do I need to hold all Dutch till today for what they did during colonial times.? Or do I disregard that?

And thanks for the history lessons. Did Latin Americans said Columbus did not "discover America" as North American history textbooks say, but "Columbus encountered America'?

You may regard or diregard this, but regardless of your regard for imperialists or the colonised, or to have high regard or low regard for one or the other or both, or to disregard the perspective of both on the same events, the facts remain the Americas were colonised the most of all regions and their aborigines completely marginalised or largely so. Oh yes, in Australia and New Zealand too.

Cheers and best regards, regardless of your regard or disregard, for an offspring of the colonisers and the colonised.

And do continue to have fun with Noam Chomsky on his linguistic books. I'm into his political books. I still love reading books over googling for "enlightenment". But do disregard my regard for googled and yahooed ones.

"J" - the disregarding one on regards, low regard, high regard, no regard, without regard etc.

I am jealous of all these people who can dream up all these poems so easily, because I don't seem to be able to do it.

for more Pat Condell, click below.

He's god's gift to atheists. See and hear him NOW.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=418_1176494781

Jihadist writes:
Merry Anonymous : "So, here, in the the New World, the christians were busy roastin the Indians over open fires, drowning them, and such."

* Were they having Indians for dinner? Rare, medium-rare and well-done meat for dinner? Downed with nice bottles of Chianti?

* Were they trying to teach the Indians how to swim, or were they waterboarding them?
.................................................
Bartolomeo de las Casas, A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies. Cabeza de Vaca, et al.

Google them. You might find them enlightening.

I assure you the indigenous people did not find the christians enlightening. And, yes, they did roast them on open fires. And Casas was not the only one to testify to this. Surely a colonialized person such as yourself would know who Casas was.

But, then, you are not indginous, are you? Your imperialism is showing, and I am not amused. Never found it funny. Never will, satirically speaking. Check with your own indigenous folk. Are they amused? No need. I know the answer.

M. Anonymous

Merry Anonymous : "So, here, in the the New World, the christians were busy roastin the Indians over open fires, drowning them, and such."

* Were they having Indians for dinner? Rare, medium-rare and well-done meat for dinner? Downed with nice bottles of Chianti?

* Were they trying to teach the Indians how to swim, or were they waterboarding them?

Reminds me of a story told by a Paficic Islander. Some Fijians were cannibals up till the 19th century.

Once upon a time, during the colonial era of Fiji under British rule in between World War I and II, a distinguished Fijian chief was travelling on a liner to visit Britain.

One night, he was invited by the ship's captain to sit at his table for dinner. Some British passengers made jokes about the cannibalism among some Fijians. The Fijian chief listened politely while studying the menu, and then, called a waiter.

The Fijian chief said : "The offered items in the menu does not interest me. Can I have a look at the passengers' list, please?"

**************************************************

Hello Daniel in the Lion's Den,

Loved your method for turning soil into brain. I could try replicate it, but it may go wrong and turn out to become The Incredible Mudbrain with powers to zap other brains into mud or soil again.

**************************************************

Hello Arminius,

Let's go into another direction.

You read Claire Hoffman's two recent essays and ensuing threads. One on Scientology, and the subsequent on "hatred". Lots of response there.

Lots of points made there, including one don't have to respect beliefs for what they stand for and do. And why one should not dislike, hate and fight against such beliefs. And points too, that one's belief is one's own and no one should regard it with aspersion and to respect one's belief.

On dislike and hatred, hating or disliking beliefs is not the same as hating or disliking certain types of food or music. No such thing, it would seem, for believers to swallow contentions such as one don't have to respect another's belief.

When it comes to ideologies and religions, that would cause an immediate reaction as not respecting ones' ideologies or beliefs is not respecting one. People do fight and die for ideologies.

Obviously and as you already know, as in politics where the personal is the political, in faith it is likewise. Take on a personal belief, and one is not taking on an idea, but a person who held such beliefs.

Berlinerblau is quite savvy on politics, faith and the politicisation of faith, or faith being politicised - by the adherents of a faith group themselves, or by others who manipulated. The Evangelical Manifesto is cleary addressing and reacting to. The signers should have called it "An Evangelical Platform" or "An Evangelical Declaration".

I would take this Manifesto more seriously than Mastubation in the public discourse on faith in the public square and private sphere. It is broader.

Besides, no one ever got arrested or fined for mastubating that I know of in any faith or non-faith groups. So what if a god lets its "seeds" drop and spread that created the universe? If mastubation is good for man, surely it is good for the gods.

I agree with Daniel in the Lion's Den when he said regardless of how we speak of God and on God, It would not be affected in any way.

Next time an athiest says, "religion poisons everything", just josh back that religion did not poison the food and drink they eat, nor the air they breathe in. And the list of things religion did not poison is endless to show a wee bit of some of the absurdities in some of the atheists' remarks repeated like a mantra.

Wait for some to come back to say, religion poisons relationships between and among believers, and between believers and non-believers. Then argue back that even non-believers have disputes which poisons relationships that nothing to do with religions. And so it goes.....to keep on learning.

Cheers :)
"J"

"I see that this thread has gone limerick-mad!"

When Jacoby says we are mad,
Think I: What of that could be bad?
In limerick delight!
Do not moan for our plight;
for it makes us more happy than sad!

Anonymous,

Thank you for "Invictus II." I am glad you kept yourself safe. I did too, I confess, but from a holy order not quite so high up on the totem pole. Blood lusty, yes. The religion of love, their alibi.

Bloody, bloody people.

Perhaps, we could move to something a bit on the lighter side, parodically speaking.

Anonymous,

Thank you for "Invictus II." I am glad you kept yourself safe. I did too, I confess, but from a holy order not quite so high up on the totem pole. Blood lusty, yes. The religion of love, their alibi.

Bloody, bloody people.

Perhaps, we could move to something a bit on the lighter side, parodically speaking.

From The Freethinker.
The voice of atheism since 1881

Laughing religion off the planet - an interview with Pat Condell

With over 5 million hits on YouTube, and another couple of million on LiveLeak, Pat Condell is a leading voice of atheism on the internet. He is also a stand-up comedian, a playwright, a former lumberjack, a talk-show panelist, and a subscriber to The Freethinker.
Pat Condell
We tracked the blaspheming infidel down to a garden shed in London and asked him a few questions.

The Freethinker: Your first Youtube video was a response to the Blasphemy Challenge. Was this your first foray into the world of internet video? If so, did you imagine that it would snowball like it did?
Pat Condell: Yes, it was. I didn’t know what to expect. I was looking for ways to publicise my stand-up show when I heard about the Blasphemy Challenge. It looked like fun, so I devised a little rant about how much I deny the holy spirit (quite a lot, as it happens), made the video in my garden shed and posted it on YouTube. The positive response convinced me that this was a medium I should explore further.

I didn’t know much about YouTube, but I guessed that most of the audience would be in America, so I made ‘Hello America‘ about how I see the relationship between our two countries. Again the response was very positive, especially from Americans. It was viewed thousands of times in a few days, and I realised I could reach a lot more people like this than in a lifetime of performing in small theatres. So I mothballed the stand-up show, much of which was topical anyway, and decided to make more videos.

Then somebody alerted me to LiveLeak, a site with a more newsy edge than YouTube. I posted my videos there and ‘The trouble with Islam‘ took off. To date it has had more than 1,750,000 hits, and with 380,000 on YouTube, it’s now been seen well over two million times.

FT: What do you like about internet video as a medium?
PC: It’s open to anyone. We no longer have to ask someone else’s permission to communicate with a wider audience.

I’ve been criticising religion for years, but only in comedy clubs. Whenever I tried to do it in the mainstream media I was censored, especially by the BBC where jokes about the subject are always heavily edited, and it’s virtually impossible to say anything at all about Islam.

The internet allows all of us to bypass these self-appointed gatekeepers and communicate our ideas without interference.

FT: How has becoming an “internet celebrity” changed your life?
PC: Thanks, but I’m not any kind of celebrity. I’m just speaking my mind. My personal life hasn’t changed, I’m glad to say, because I’m very happy with it as it is.

FT: Your attacks on religion in general, and Islam in particular, have led many people to describe you as “fearless”. Are you?
PC: No. I get death threats and I take them seriously. However, I’ve never responded well to bullies, and I have no intention of starting now.

FT: Christian evangelist Dinesh D’Sousa has accused you of being smug. How do you respond to this?
PC: People have called me a lot worse. I’d never heard of this guy until someone directed me to his blog. Since then I’ve read his book on Christianity, and I didn’t see anything in it to warrant respecting his opinion on anything, so he can call me whatever he likes.

FT: Do you still do stand-up?
PC: I haven’t worked the circuit full time for years. I wrote my last show specifically to say something about religion. Confronted first hand by the political correctness at the BBC, I felt the subject was being falsely represented and legitimate opinion was being censored. As a result, religion, and Islam in particular, was getting an inflated idea of its own importance. Stand-up was the medium I knew best, and as I didn’t see anybody else in the comedy world queuing up to address this situation I elected myself.

FT: How would you describe your personal philosophy?
PC: I’m a vegetarian and I strongly support animal rights. (I hope that’s OK with Jesus.)
I find it hard not to smile at religion’s conceit that we’re superior to animals on the basis that we have souls and they don’t, when five minutes in a slaughterhouse would convince anyone that, if anything, it’s animals who have the souls and human beings who don’t.

As for my opposition to religion, it’s not about theology - I couldn’t care less whether God exists or not - it’s a civil rights issue. I believe everyone should be free to determine their own experience in life and not have it imposed by someone else. We don’t need our reality filtered through religious dogma any more than we need spring water adulterated with chemicals.

FT: What is your favourite thing about religion?
PC: If nothing else it is genuinely inclusive. Nobody is rejected, as it doesn’t require intelligence, only faith. Not that some intelligent people aren’t religious. There are people with biochemistry degrees who devote their lives to proving Genesis true. Nobody could call those people unintelligent, but they are fools.

The best thing about religion is that it’s so transparently absurd it can’t possibly last forever. I’m convinced it will only take a small shift in human consciousness for it to be laughed off the planet, and I hope I’m still around when that happens.

FT: What about the future? Will we see a collection of your videos on the market?
PC: Yes. The Richard Dawkins Foundation is issuing a non-profit DVD of my first thirty-five videos which should be out soon.

FT: What can we do to resist the growing influence of religion?
PC: We can speak out. That’s what the internet is for, and it’s the only reason my voice is being heard. We need to make as much noise as religious people do, and with as much certainty about our right to do so.

Nobody should be bullied into showing respect they don’t think is deserved. If you hear somebody claiming special treatment because of their faith you’re entitled to say: ‘No, I object to this. It offends me, it insults my beliefs, and it’s a violation of my human rights.’

Use their tactics if you feel strongly enough. Make a nuisance of yourself. Make an official complaint. Take it to a tribunal. As an atheist you’re part of a minority whose beliefs are constantly ignored and marginalised while religious prejudice is pandered to and encouraged, and you have every right to be offended by that.

Also, I would urge everyone to join the National Secular Society and the British Humanist Association, both of whom do excellent work in the cause of sanity.

Remember, one person on their own can’t do much, but a million people each doing a little every day can change things very quickly.

Invictus II

Out from the light that brightens me
radiant as love from point to point
I thank whatever God may be
That the Jesuits never got my joint.

Near the fell clutch of circumstance
I did not wince or give other sign
For molestation is not just chance.
The Jesuits went after those who whined.

Beyond their Church of Greek-loving boys
Loomed the unmolested life.
Could I outlast their canibal ways
I might have children and a wife.

It matters much how strait the gait
When blood lusty Christians stalk nearby.
Be advised to keep your head on straight,
Or they will spot you, by and by.

Thomas Baum wrote:

--"Has any of you ever wondered what God thinks of all of this bickering?"

I've noticed that such wonderment has never stopped you from stating your beliefs. Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't you written here that you see it as your mission in life to keep up the religious side of that argument? Why am I thinking that your prescription for a cure might entail non-believers just shutting up and going away?

If there is an intentional god out there somewhere, I'd think it would be pleased as punch that humans use this thing between our ears.

-----------

Was the second person of the Trinity there when the first person of the Trinity ordered the slaughtered all of those Egyptian and Canaanite babies?

-----------

As a personal favor, I kindly ask that when responding to any post of mine that you not advise me to "Take care and be ready." Perhaps I'm overly sensitive, but I view it as a thinly veiled threat wrapped in the guise of mock concern.

Up the ante, shall we? Loving imitations, parodies, travesties, welcome. (Scholarship unwelcome.)

William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903

7. Invictus

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance 5
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade, 10
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate: 15
I am the captain of my soul.

What? is not only a killjoy but a total biblical prude in an old-fashioned way. Paul the saintly prude would be proud of him. Saul was probably busy slapping his own hand much of the time....and yet, those Old Testament characters loved their women - nothing prudish about those old boys. How many wives did Solomon or David have?? Sex didn't get complicated until the Greeks came along, right??

Those old desert Jews were having at it night and day, when they weren't going to war and slaughtering the enemy, of course. So we have to ask ourselves, is Christianity Apollonian or Dionysian in the mythical sense?? Are they Roman or Greek in spirit - worshipping the sun god and honoring higher intellectual and spiritual standards by keeping chaste in the manner of boxers and olympic athletes, or sluggging down wine and rutting in the divine delights of our baser earthly existence? (in the true manner of boxers and olympic athletes).

All is good. There is nothing squeamish about religion and sex, other than among modern-day evangelicals and fundamentalists, of course.

Is there anything in the Evangelical Manifesto about sexual impropriety I wonder??

There really is no way to debase religion or religious belief - the mythology of religion celebrates every conceivable human behavior as being both divinely natural and even inevitable - with religion, every act of creation is intimately connected with sexuality. Procreation is a very big religious theme, after all. Damn Adam and Eve and that godforsaken viper of knowledge. Thus was the myth of Satan born......

What's up with these sexual hang-ups anyway? Mr. Mark does a clever little improv on divine masturbation, and everyone goes goofy - what's up with that?? Talk about a universal theme.....

I figure Martin Luther really put the kibosh to sex and religion - the poor man was suffering from constipation and hemmorhoids to such a degree that he hardly had the time or the inclination for divine dalliance - he spouted religious propriety with the best of them though.

I shall leave it there without further ado.

Here's my amateur attempt:

There once was a Christian named Spidey,
who predicted the rapture on Friday.
He preached with much haste,
"be damned, human race!!"
(But he buried his cash, just in case.)

I swear these poems are some of the funniest things I've ever read! My sides ache!

Thanks to all who contribute them.

The First Person of the Trinity looked and still looks down on us and cares about us, ALL OF US.

The Second Person of the Trinity became one of us and walked among us and looked right at us as a fellow human being.

The Third Person of the Trinity was sent to help us thru this world thru both the good and the bad as a Comforter and Guide.

Has anyone lately looked at humanity as one family, as in we are all brothers and sisters?

Does it seem to anyone else that we, the human family, seem to be somewhat dysfunctional?

Does it also seem that some seem to think that they are superior because they believe in God and that there are others that seem to think that they are superior because they don't believe in God?

Has any of you ever wondered what God thinks of all of this bickering?

Just a few things to think about, of course that is up to each and every individual person, it is your choice.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Dear Spidey -

I had a thought:

in your next post, why not demand the same level of evidence and proof for your claims to Biblical "truth" as you do for scientific claims, and at the same time, why not apply the same free-ride in the evidence department for scientific claims as you allow for Biblical claims?

Perhaps you'd end up in a net zero situation and go away quietly.

Mr. Mark,

Most excellent limerick. When I was in eighth grade studying comparative religion, the Christian virgin birth in particular, I drew a cartoon of a giant ejaculating erection descending from out of the clouds and literally bowling Mary over with gallons of divine semen, while Joseph stood by dumbfounded holding his shepherd's hook. The caption: "You, Mary, shall bear my child."

It's a prized possession and source of wonderful nostalgia. I guess some things never change.

Arminus,

With all due respect, chill out. I saw nothing personal in Mr. Mark's reply. Posts provide STIMULATION to other bloggers, that's all. You have got to admit that the defining feature of faith, being utterly unfounded in evidence and all, is ABSURDITY. As I've said before, absurdity is the source of humor, so it's only NATURAL that religion would lead the atheist to postulate the type of humorous absurdities about which Mr. Mark waxed poetic.

Chris

Arminius -

One last try at this from me, then I'll let it rest.

When you write, "I am familiar with the celestial masturbation thing. I find it amusing," are you not being just as offensive to other religionists as you accuse me of being of you and your beliefs? Are not the rest of your comments just as offensive to religionists who believe in a god from whose seed the universe was created? Do you not consider believers in Shiva to be "demented dumbasses" as their beliefs are "amusing" to you? Do they not also hold their beliefs dear?

No, I don't think you think that, and I don't think you find people who hold such beliefs to be "beneath you." Yet, you accuse me of the same. Why?

Final point: who, exactly, is putting masturbation in the gutter? Not me, and not you. I'd say it's your religion, that's who.

When I read Merry Anomymous, I believe in Creation.

But when I read Spiderman, I believe in evolution.

This is a truly agonizing thread. It is causing some of my weaker teeth to threaten permanent departure.

It is Beowulf's last stand with each side claiming the other is the dragon.

Enough! I beg you!

Surely, a second coming is a hand/A different topic is at hand. (Sorry, Bill, old boy.)

Dear Merry Anonymous and Pseudo,

I notice that Pseudo has returned after lo this long absence space-time-compression-wise. I Thank you both for accepting me into the Fellowship of Lanuage Sporstmen. Honored and humbled am I. 'Sblood,I shall do my best to uphold the reputation of said Fellowship.

Merry A., thank you again for your concern for my welfare thesis-wise. But, as you know, no man or woman goes into this work without knowing the risk that lurks therein. I have made my bed, so to speak, and now I must lie upon it, however damp it may become, aporetically speaking, thesis-wise.

Very truly yours,
Bewildful

Daniel ITLD,

I am not mad, I am bitter. I really thought better of Mr Mark. And he IS better, he just has not grasped that yet. He has some pride to get rid of, and some true tolerance to learn.

Damn, I am forever bad about preaching. I'm gonna shut up about all of this.

But I appreciate your input.

Arminius

Mr. Mark wrote "..when Biblical scholars started to apply the same standards of proof to the Bible as they did to everything else. "

Like proclaiming they found our "common ancestor" after digging up Darwin's remains or was it actually a pigmy's or a pig's extants?

Merry Anonymous "Why must you convince me or the heathens? Why the Jews, so, in particular? If you believe, that should be enough for you."

It was not meant to convince. It was to clarify false claims by "Christian" people here. Reading comprehension disorder? It starts when one refuses to believe the Bible I guess. You did a pretty lengthy reply for a wrong presumption just like the Theory of Evolution.

Wow, how strange that ignorance can move mountains. But no wonder coz the devil is "great". That's what I hear when Islamist's shout their slogan "'god' is great". What they refer to as 'god' is a misconception and is actually the devil.

By the way, Im interested on what's your take on "how soil turned to brains". Would you please "convince" me.

To the rest who gave their answers (JIhadist, arminius and e favorite), thanks a lot. I like them. Please keep it coming.

Mr Mark,

One last try at this, then I'll let it rest.

I am familiar with the celestial masturbation thing. I find it amusing. As a single straight male with no current willing female partners, I partake in that practice from time to time. I do not feel ashamed or sinful, just lonely.

You still don't get it, do you?

I consider your limerick a personal attack. You took what I believe, what is not just dear to me, but part of me, and put it in the gutter. Your obvious despite of anything religious shows your view that anyone who believes anything like that is somehow beneath you. I would NEVER attack you that way. You don't accept me as an equal, you just barely tolerate me as some kind of demented dumbass.

Arminius

Don't be mad.

Did you see the movie "Fargo?"

At the end of the movie, the landscape was a desolate and forbiding snow-scape, as harsh and uninviting as any vision of Siberia.

And then the lead character (I forget her name), the pregnant police officer, said with naive and sincere enthusiasm, "Isn't it a beautiful day?"

Dear Arminius & What?? -

Are you aware that some religions are very specific in their belief that creation flowed from their god's emissions? Do a little research on Atum or the Egyptian god, Ptah, the architect of the universe who maintains cosmic order through continual masturbation. What about the Hindi god, Shiva or the Greek god, Hermes? Many ancient gods and their cults were based on phallic worship and the belief that life flowed from the male seed, including that of their male gods.

Is it "debasing" for me to report these historic truths about various gods? Do you no longer "trust" me because I refuse to consider such issues strictly within the narrow prism of your imaginary god and your sex-is-bad religion (and sex with yourself is an unpardonable sin), finding natural human urgings and actions like self-stimulation - and the practice of these human behaviors by the gods themselves - "offensive?"

Or is it because the doctrines and dogmae of Christianity have so debased such natural human acts as self stimulation that you're able to find it offensive when such human attributes are projected onto your god?

Portray the Biblical god as a homicidal and genocidal maniac and there's nary a whimper of offensive from the faithful. But inject sex into the discussion and offensive is taken, and taken in grand style.

As far as disrespecting your god - isn't blasphemy the very definition of the phrase, "victimless crime?"

Ms Jacoby wrote:

--"This manifesto offers yet another example of religious believers, who are already privileged in American public life, pretending that they are really a threatened group."

I could not agree more. We constantly see evidence for such in this blog where any criticism of religion is met with the refrain of "Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot". Given their demonstrated willingness to misrepresent and mischaracterize the motives and actions of people who just happened to be non-believers, I don't trust them any further than I can throw John Haggee. (By the way, while there may some question as to whether or not Hitler was ever a practicing Catholic, there apparently is little doubt about Himmler, Goebbels and other leading Nazis.)

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

The theory of evolution (ToE) proposes that life evolved from random mutation AND non-random natural selection. It is NOT just happenstance. Ignoring the second part of ToE is useful to some theists, but belies a serious misunderstanding of ToE.

Abiogenesis deals with the question of how life began. ToE deals with what happened to it after it began. The two subjects are not the same.

Ah, yes, the King of Cut and Paste
CCNL's his name, devoid of taste
Islam he hates much the hottest
But he's got the hots for Jihadist
Don't read him, your time you will waste.

Back on the topic with a refresher:

Expanding the definition of evangelicals: (new entries found on global Google)

1. "Propheteers" for profit

Other "Propheteers" for profit?? Mohammed and Paul

2. Militants with a religious zeal for a cause. e.g. Muslims, Zionists, Sunnis, Shiites, members of the IRA.

3. Militants who erroneously follow the "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) of a religion.

e.g. the "fems" of Islam:

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

This agenda continues as shown by the assassination of Bhutto, the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the Islamic bombers of the trains in the UK and Spain, the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani “koranics”, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases, the Taliban nut jobs, and the Filipino “koranics”.

And who funds this muck and stench of terror? The warmongering, Islamic, Shiite terror and torture theocracy of Iran aka the Third Axis of Evil and also the Sunni "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.

O Islam, Islam, violent Islam,
Moha, illiterate and hallucinating,
O Islam, Islam, violent Islam,
Moha greed and lustful, womanizing,
Was he too,

O Islam, O Islam, violent Islam,
Moha, warmongering and hateful,
Was he too,

O Islam, O Islam, violent Islam,
Sunnis of hate, Shiites of late,
Even Pretty Wingie Thingies cannot
Save us from O Islam's hate.

Save us from these Islamic FEMs,
Flaws, Errors, Muck and Stench,
They ooze from the rocks of earth,
Like worms of wrench and death.

Born, Bred, and Brainwashed too,
Whatever, whatever to do?
Truth, Truth, History and Truth,
Let it Ring True, Freedom, Freedom
Freedom at Last and much left to do!!!

>>Susan Jacoby:

>>I see that this thread has gone limerick-mad!

Yes, and incidentally, mad, otherwise..

>>Well, it's spring. Proving that both atheists and religious believers need a break.

Actually, the only thing some recent posts here has proven is that there are those who seem to be non-believers and must think it smart and enlightened, nay funny, to write debase prose that epitomizes the immoral direction our country has sadly taken.

Dear Jihadist

That sounds like a good recipe for making brains.

I have been thinking of one myself.

Dig up some mud out of your back yard. (We've had a good deal of rain lately). Plop it in a big bucket. Write away to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and ask them to send you some radium, just a pinch. Mix it all up with the mud real good.

Then get a jello mold shaped like a brain. Spoon the mixture generiously into the mold. Then get your jumper cables and hook them up to the jello mold and your car battery, and give it a few jolts of electricity.

Then set it out in the sun for awhile. When you unmold, it, if you have done it all right, then maybe it would be a brain.

But I do not think it would live too long, sitting out in the sun, without a body, or anything.

Regarding Mary Cununingham's poem, and othes with similar opinions, the question is how can something come from nothing? And how can all of humanity be by chance?

How does the existence of God dispel this kind of unsatisfied feeling? Did God create the world? Then the world did not come from nothing, but from God. But then, where did God come from? from nothing?

And suppose that humanity did not appear by chance, but by some will and design of God? Then how is that supposed to end a person's skepticism, curiosity, and puzzlemnt? For, again, where did God come from? Did God just appear by chance?

And so, what of people who see all of the wonderful laws of nature and laws of physics, that cause all to operate as it does? Isn't this proof of an Intelligent Designer? How can there there be all of the intricately worked out laws of nature, without an Intelligent Designer to make it all happen as it does?

But, when you try to understand what the laws of nature are, you quickly realize that they are not anything at all; they are not things; they are not forces; they are not energy fields, nor even anything measurable in any way.

And then, you realize that this Intelligent Designer which has made this great universe according to a great and logical plan, is just our own minds, just ourselves, contemplating ourselves, contemplating the way we organize our perceptions of the world, in order to navigate it.

Trying to noodle through God is futile. All the arguments for God that anyone can make have already been made thousands of times.

By the way we exist in the world, we cannot know the things of God, that so many people hopelessly and futiley seek to prove. In all of this, I understand the atheist's point of view.

What is left? No belief at all, or some kind of belief, based on a moment of insight and an inner feeling. If I say that I have this kind of belief, then I know that I invite the scorn of all the believers-in-certitude, and I know I invite the scorn of all the atheists who have never sensed this moment of insight, and whose inner will cannot believe. I understand all this.

But it is not important to me. With the kind of belief that I have, I cannot imagine such a status or state as apostasy, or of heresy, or even of wrong thinking, but only of thinking that is different from my own. And I cannot imagine blaspehmy, that God could ever be insulted by anything that I might say, or that anyone might say about God, and that any blasphemous insult that anyone ever feels is for themselves, and for their own feelings, on God's behalf, perhaps.

And almost all discussion about "faith" and about religion is a sort of political dueling, a kind of game, that is sometimes done light-heartedly, as perhaps it is done here, or else, that is practiced with deadly brute force.

>>Dear Arminius:

>>Whether god moved his hand slow or fast,
>>The image that I can't get past:
>>Is that all of creation,
>>'Tis but an ejaculation,
>>The result of god's self-pleasuring act.

You know, folks...I had thought that a report I saw last night about teens doing 'dances' in Memphis that would make the movie 'Dirty Dancing' look like a 50's musical was about as debase as we could get.

I was wrong.

Mary Cunningham,

Thanks for your post. There are similar cases in Germany and Turkey. But China does really go above and beyond the call of official state non-religiousity in not only discouraging, but outright repression of religious expression forcing some to practice their faith "underground".

Regards
"J"

**************************************************

Spidey : "How did soil turn into brain?"

It's like this:

Ingredients:

* One and a half cups of water

* Three handfuls of fine soil

* Cells extracted from four D size alkaline batteries (carbon zinc acceptable)

Method:

* Place all ingredients in a bowl.

* Knead the ingredients throughly to a spongy consistency.

* Take out the mixture and place on a wooden flat boardboard.

* Shape the mixture into a lump.

* Let the shaped lump sit and marinade for an hour.

* Take the lump and place it in the empty vessel inside the head.

You can extract more cells from more batteries to for more cells in the brain you're making.

Remember, the mixed, kneaded lump must fit in in the head. If not, it won't fit in a small head. Or it would rattle around in a big head and we would have a peabrain instead.

I have not patented the process for turning soil into brains as it was yet to be tested as per effectiveness. But you can have this method or technique of turning soil into brains to be included in your upcoming "Book of Idiots".

I've decided to make my process for turning soil into brains as a public domain knowledge.

Cheers

Gerry,

You said, in reply to Ryan Haber's screed:
"...ignorance is not bliss, but a cherished tool for spreading hatred."

If there are any foundational truths about how the human beastie behaves, that is surely one of them. Good show, mate.

Arminius

Ryan Haber,

your nonsense about Europeans being jailed for opposing abortion and homosexuality is preposterous. From what church tabloid do you collect your information? Is it necessary to spread such blatant lies in order to proselytize? Gaby has already answered your silly allegation, but it makes a European citizen furious that ignorance is not bliss, but a cherished tool for spreading hatred.

I see that this thread has gone limerick-mad! Well, it's spring. Proving that both atheists and religious believers need a break.

Mr Mark,

I am no prude. That's not the point. What you did is make fun of what I believe, and thus you make fun of me. And you did it crudely. If you had written it about fairies and directed it against a Pagan, I would have been just as offended. It shows what you really think of me.

No, we are not enemies, but I'll never fully trust you again.

Arminius

A lady called Lisa was firm in
believing all godless are vermin.
Let's hope she detects
that the vermin reflects
nothing else than her own ugly sermon.

Dear Arminius -

It's offensive only if you believe self-pleasuring oneself is offensive. If I've offended the prudes here, my bad.

But beyond that, it can't possibly be offensive if - like me - you don't believe god exists. There's no such thing as blasphemy if one doesn't believe in god, is there?

If my little poem had been written about fairies, the Loch Ness Monster, Zeus or Poseidon I doubt you'd find it offensive.

I hope this doesn't cause another falling out between us!

Anonymous:

I agree that all here should show mutual respect and try to have a civilized dialog. This respect is, of course, based on the fundamental right to believe, or not believe. But it should include not making fun of someone's belief or non-belief by calling them fools, or making boorish fun of their beliefs/non-beliefs.

Being a liberal Christian, I get it from both sides sometimes. I will also admit that there have been a few occasions where I went to war. Mostly this is when someone I consider a friend is unjustly attacked. But if I am out of line, and called on it, I apologize.

Arminius

And doggerel begat doggerel, even unto the end of days...
MaryCunningham:
Although I like their dazzling twists
I’m glad I’m not an atheist.
Somehow they just cannot explain
How something out of nothing came.
As well they hold life happenstance
The mere result of random chance.
Their construct is a tale too tall,
I can’t conceive it. Not at all!
-----------------------------

TC:
Although I like religious twists
I’m glad I am an atheist.
Somehow theists cannot explain
How something out of nothing came.
An explanation they would request,
but offer names to the perplexed.
Yaweh, Allah, Pan, Ba-al
All do as well as none at all.
As well they hold life happenstance
The mere result of random chance.
Their constructs are but tales too tall,
I can’t believe them. Not at all!

"Most people don't enjoy being browbeaten and talked down to and it creates barriers to whatever it is that you want to convey. Think about it."

I suggest that all of the Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians on this board follow the same rules. Us non-Christians don't like to be called fools, browbeaten, told that we're going to some imaginary lake of fire, or talked down to because we don't believe the same things that you do.

Mr Mark,

Clever, but offensive.

Dear Arminius:

Whether god moved his hand slow or fast,
The image that I can't get past:
Is that all of creation,
'Tis but an ejaculation,
The result of god's self-pleasuring act.

God slowly moved His mighty hand
So by Himself he made the Big Bang
Wrapped up in it was evolution
Except for fundies, they're devolution
And this won't please the fundie gang.

Evolution proves, "here's whence you came."
But religionists, burdened by shame,
Dismiss settled facts,
With some passage from Acts,
And prefer some lame, mythical claim.

E FAVORITE
'"How did soil turn into brain? Does anyone have a creative answer?"

God did it!

Oops, Sorry - that's not very creative'

EF, I love it.

Liked that one Gerry, no adhoms either. Will return tomorrow. Still, a beginning:

I find remarkable your claim
You do not care from whence you came.
It's not that athiests are spurious,
It just they are so dammed incurious.

To Mary Cunningham

Variation No. 1:

We also like the dazzling twists
as happy, honest Atheists.
We don’t sell legends to explain,
how something out of nothing came.
My life has meaning just as broad
As yours, without the fairy god.
At least I don’t believe a story,
Of god creating himself for glory.
A proxy god who killed himself,
into such nonsense I don’t delve.
Christ’s death to mend his flawed creation,
Believing this should mean “salvation”?
The universe is much too tall,
Gods are designed to make it small.

Hugh says:

"If the stories in the Gospels (to limit the discussion to the most useful scope) were false, they would have been amply rebutted close to the time. Consider Hillary Clinton's recent gaffe by claiming she landed in Bosnia under sniper fire or whatever -- there were plenty of people -- even those who share her politics -- who were more interested in the truth of the matter than the agenda she stands for. The same sort of thing would have happened if the Christian claims were fabricated."

The elephant in the room of your argument is this: the EARLIEST extant sources we have for ANYTHING in the NT dates from the SECOND CENTURY. In other words, AT LEAST 60-100 years AFTER THE FACT.

The FACT is that the people who wrote the NT were NOT "close to the time" that Jesus supposedly lived. Indeed, they were no closer to living when Jesus was alive than a person born today is "close" to when JFK was assassinated. Imagine a person born today writing a "history" of the JFK assassination based entirely on second-, third- and fourth-hand oral reports that were NOT informed by the copious media documentation of today.

One wonders how the Hillary/Bosnia story will be retold 60 years from now. I doubt very much that much "truth" will remain to the tale at that time. One need only look at the revisionist opinions that are being peddled about Sen Joe McCarthy these days! 50 years after the fact and Ann Coulter and others are telling us what a great guy he was!

In short, you are grafting the speed and comprehensiveness of 21st century communications onto an oral tradition from a time when most people never ventured more than 10 miles from the place they were born.

To aver that "the same sort of thing (ie: communication of current events)" COULD HAVE POSSIBLY happened in Biblical times with the same speed, accuracy and comprehensiveness as any event that transpires in our time is both ludicrous and laughable.

Back at ya.

Please go to the following website and read the story:

http://www.ferkelbuch.de/ferkelbuch.pdf

It's the English tranlation of a German children's book that has caught the wrath of religious people in Germany and was selected to be banned by the German government based on it's depictions of Christians, Jews, and Muslims. The German High Court ultimately overturned the banning. It's too bad the translation does not have the illustrations of the printed German version, but I believe they are available on the web if you Google "Wo bitte geht's zu Gott?"

Hugh writes:

"You asked whether there is a moral equivalence between abortion and letting a person die for want of an organ transplant. The moral _contrast_ should be obvious: the lethal factor in the one case is the abortion; in the other, some disease necessitating a transplant. The abortion is voluntary; the disease is involuntary.

On the other hand, if you want to draw parallels with respect to a person's course of action in response to the lethal factor, your suggestion about forced transplants corresponds to forcing people to barricade abortion clinics. Neither is appropriate; a free society demands that a person's course of action should be voluntary, not coerced."

Actually, I didn't ask that, never would. You are shifting the grounds of the argument. I shall refrain from discussing the Catholic perspective, i.e., that even if the mother's life is in danger, the pregnancy should be carried to term, a process that Judaism expressly forbids under those circumstances, since that religion always priveleges the living person.

"Pro-Life" people on the other hand do not. They are, in effect, pro-fetalists. If women are to be forced to carry to term, regardless of the circumstances, e.g., as rape victims, victims of incest, etc., for whatever reasons, then you are effectively saying that the government has the right to control their bodies for nine months and even putting their physical and mental health at stake.

My analogy suffers in the following way. A bone marrow transplant, kidney donation, blood donation, does not pose the risk of permanent injury and death that pregnancy does. It is not a ten month affair. To equalize the situation, and to attach at least the same importance to the born and suffering as you do to the unborn fetus fetus could be met in the ways I describe. The risk factors, ten month process, etc. I shall have to consider further.

Must dash. Surely you do not mean to evade the issue. Surely as a person who is "Pro-Life," you wish to consider the born.

My last post was in reference to M. Anonymous, 1;30 pm.

He that believeth was a good starting point, the best, in all likelihood.

Necessary, but not sufficient.

Dear Hugh -

Thanks for your recent posts. They give me a better idea where you're coming from.

When you say that the idea of Xianity copying other religions "has been soundly defeated in the scholarly literature as much as 100 years ago," you're accepting received opinion that is hardly born out by scholarship that is ongoing. I'd urge you not to fall into the easy trap (and, an easy out if you wish to avoid a serious discussion) of faith, for it's built on shifting sand.

The truth of the matter is that the church had it easy for centuries. Everybody assumed the Bible was historically accurate. That started to change drastically about 150 years ago when Biblical scholars started to apply the same standards of proof to the Bible as they did to everything else. We're now in a situation where the tables are reversed, and it's the Bible believers who are tasked to offer proof beyond opinion.

To aver that such things were "settled" is akin to saying that everyone knows that there is a god.

As far as Xianity "copying" Mithrasism, I thought I made it clear that I don't believe that. The are similarities, not whole-hog adaptations of one to another. What you must face up to is that people have realized the similarities between the Christ story and other god stories for centuries. Justin Martyr (100-165 CE) proposed way back when that these "false" god stories that seemed to so closely anticipate the life events of Christ did so because they were creations of Satan, ie: stories that were launched decades (centuries?) before the advent of Christ to confuse potential believers when Christ finally did arrive on the scene. If people living that close to the supposed time Christ walked the earth acknowledged the similarities, why can't you?

And, Lee Strobel? THAT'S who you're going to read to get a better understanding of the subject? Wow. Not good. See here: ...http://www.caseagainstfaith.com/..They call themselves "The premier site on the net for debunking Lee Strobel's "Case for ..." apologetic series."

I could go on and answer many of your other questions, and, perhaps I owe it to you to do so. But I've been through this exercise SO many times on this blog that I'm just not up to it. My suggestion? - if your really want answers (or, at the least, if you're really interested in the other side of the argument) there are plenty of resources available on the internet. You might start with the one I've listed for you.

Good luck and happy learning.

He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (Jn 3:18)

Often, I have wondered if it is this statement that has made hell on earth for so many Jews in so many countries for two thousand years.

If they do not believe, they, in particular, since it is they whom Christianity, Catholicism supercedes, then the whole extravaganza is cast into doubt. Intolerable.

Taken together with the horrible neo-canibalistic element which led to the "pure blood," sange pura of the Spaniards, or "christians" as they were called and called themselves felt free to unleash their barbarity not only on Jews,but on Muslims, and anyone else, should it become convenient, desirable, or expedient to do so. Their barbarity in the New World reached such levels that the emporer himself asked "the christians" to curb it a bit.

But, alas, it had begun under the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic. Jews, Muslims, and certainly not INdians could never be true "christians" (they used lower case) because they did not have sangre pura. That would be Isabella, the Catholic, who launched the Spanish Inquisition, staffed by Vatican approved clerics and lay clergy.

So, here, in the the New World, the christians were busy roastin the Indians over open fires, drowning them, and such. Perfectly permissible as they were either useful or not useful in the rape of the land by the christians and after all, they did not have pure blood.

Hitler, the massacres all over Europe, etc., were a part of an ongoing historical Christian process. Hitler adopted the language of the New Testament, as has been widely noted, and had no problem getting support from the German Catholics and German Lutherans. Then it was a mere matter of time before Christians elsewhere, some quite amusingly, since they were next on his list, aligned themselves with him.

Please. If you want to believe, believe. I believe there was a Golem in my apartment two days ago. It was seen leaving by my neighbors. It will appear in my neighborhood newspaper.

Now, am I going around trying to convince everyone? You want to believe? Believe. But can you keep it to yourselves, please?

Why must you convince me or the heathens? Why the Jews, so, in particular? If you believe, that should be enough for you.

Atheists/Agnostics: Ditto. If you came by yourself to your present view, let the believers do the same.

M. Anonymous
Former Captive Christian

We must remember that the 'soil into brain' process does work in reverse. Spidey is living evidence. But I would be tempted to use a stronger word than 'soil'. Shame on me....

Arminius

"How did soil turn into brain? Does anyone have a creative answer?"

God did it!

Oops, Sorry - that's not very creative

"Madness?" This.... Is... WaPo! :)

*giggle.* Sorry. :)

I could have just said, 'Yaknow, whatever, Spiderman.'

Apparently this level of discussion doesn't suit your insistences. Nothing new there.

c ya later guys. Continue the madness.

See, a little cheers, here, for Arminius and Thomas, who said to each other:

""If someone thinks that believing in God is somehow more important to God that how someone treats their fellow human beings than that someone has not a clue about God."

Right you are. People who believe otherwise need to read the Gospels.""

Mind you, I often *seriously disagree* with Thomas on where he takes this, but, *that* is what I like to think is the Christianity of my respected ancestors. What they were trying to make of it, shall we say, even if it didn't turn out so well, and, well, personally, it's not actually your God or your saviour guy I have disrespect for....

It's the world-view. It's the belief in belief, and the posing of one tribal father-God as the summation of the Divine in the actual universe.

Also the 'you get-one-life-judged-eternally-by-sin-and-punishment-based on orthodoxy' *view of the universe.*

If you ask me, that just ain't so.

It's not really possible for me to believe otherwise. There's a lot of fluff and grandiosity about the subject, but it looks like I'm just one of the lucky-ducks who managed to get croaked in a previous life under circumstances about which some pretty detailed records are kept.

Anyone wanting 'proof,' well, sorry, I didn't have certain lifelong visions notarized. And if I had, I still wouldn't tell you. People I loved would still be involved.

But.

Someone tries to talk as though, 'Absence of proof to the contrary means obviously my dogma is correct' ...don't get to inflate a slight rational doubt into an insistence on 'Ultimate truth.'

It's not always about 'Does My God Exist,' ...sometimes, it's about what you attach to that.

In the waking world, I get called an 'Angel' with uncanny frequency.

Also told by ideologues on the Net that I 'don't know love' for not being Christian or for not approving of certain Christian political tactics...

Or, in fact, for not believing that, in spite of in someone's worldview where the Son of God sacrificed himself to himself to save us all from himself re: this Sin idea....

...that it's possible there's more to life than observing tabooes to appease a judgemental God to 'save' us from a 'sin' that theoretically everyone got saved from, anyway.

Some Christians, while claiming to be 'saved' *worship at the altar* of 'Sin.'

That's not embracing a liberation. That's propitiating a wrathful and all-too-human God... by making 'sacrifices' of *others.*

I don't think that was supposed to be the point.

But don't look at me if it all comes out backwards.

I mostly know y'all by your fruits.

And you throw a lot of those in my general direction.

Holy Cow -

Well, you have a peculiar world view for someone living in the 21st century. On the other hand, when we discover how many believers prefer the myth of Genesis over evolution and natural selection as the basis for life, your position begins to make perfect sense in the larger scheme of things (or perfect nonsense, as the case may be).

Were religion viewed as being comprised of the myth and allegory that is really is, rather than as the unerring reports of concrete fact, we'd be light years ahead of where we are today.

I read an interesting article taken from Skeptic magazine by two noted astrophysicists that were discussing the possibility of extra-terrestrial life, and why they hadn't simply revealed themselves by now as indisputable proof of their existence - thus framing that most pressing of questions regarding aliens, "if they're actually there, then where are they?".

These two scientists theorized that given the magnitude of the known universe (100 billion or so galaxies estimated thus far on the order of our own Milky Way and near galactic twin Andromeda - a mere 2 million light years away) it was quite likely that advanced civilizations existed, statistically speaking. Astronomer Carl Sagan would not have disputed this hypothesis.

However, given the advanced state of their technology (not to mention altogether strange appearance) they would probably introduce their presence very, very gradually to a race as primitive as ourselves - thus sparing us not only terminal fright, but global chaos in the process. So then, sightings over the centuries would be engineered as very fleeting glimpses - the stuff of myth and imagination...the illusions of master galactic traveler/ magicians.

Perhaps we are being prepared for a direct confrontation one of these days! On the other hand, it is unlikely that we are being sized up for an alien smorgasbord - as in that early and memorable sci-fi movie about aliens and alien cookbooks, 'To Serve Man'....otherwise we'd all have been digested ages ago.

Still and all, it looks like we have a ways to go before we're prepared for that grand revelatory moment - getting past the global stumbling block of all Abrahamic religions...perpetrating myth as fact-based reality, and easily one of our biggest evolutionary hurdles.

Any cognitive trend in that direction could well be perceived as our next evolutionary leap - at that point we may be ready for bigger and better things for one and all....... even without alien intervention.

If we read the Julian Jaynes book, ‘The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind’ we see the possibility (albeit controversial) that man has evolved cognitively into a self-conscious being only in the last few thousand years or so. Here, the gods speak via a profound division within man himself – thus religion, theology and theocracies are a direct result of the right and left hemispheres of man’s brain (as connected by the corpus callosum) communicating with one another through auditory and visual hallucinations.

Self-consciousness begins to emerge around 1700 B.C. due perhaps to the compelling impetus of natural disasters and catastrophes of the time. In other words, in order to survive, man must sink or swim – and begins to think for himself in deriving survival solutions. By the sixth century B.C. during the Golden Age of Greece, the gods have deserted us – and the modern mind of Man takes center stage.....well, almost.

Interesting reading……

"Neither do I condemn thee: go, and SIN NO MORE ." (John 8:11)

"For the wages of sin is death (hell)..."

"Jesus condemned no one, neither do I." He means it."

Yeah, invent your own Jesus. Why not invent your own religion and then invent your own doctrines. Stop revising the Bible. It's too intelligent for dumb people.

Keep your mind busy in questions like the one below instead of messing up with the Word of God.

How did soil turn into brain?

Does anyone have a creative answer?

Hi, Paganplace!

All too true that many 'Christians' are too quick to condemn. But then keep up with what Thomas Baum says: "Jesus condemned no one, neither do I." He means it. I try to live that way too, with limited success.

A pity Spidey can't see things that way.

Arminius

"He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (Jn 3:18)

Atheists here are condemned already.

"In other words, God doesn't punish people for not believing. He punishes people for their crimes against him. Nobody's claiming that God sends good people to hell."

Actually, many people who want to set policy in the public square claim *just that.*

They demonstrate, while condemning others as 'subhuman' in various ways, that they care *not* what their preachers *do* while taking great and coercive interest in what others *believe.*

I'm not afraid of your God 'judging my goodness.'
If I did, I'd question his apparent insistence that 'goodness' involves believing liars telling me to do and say harmful things.

I think what really freaks a lot of Fundies out is in fact, that even accepting those self-serving conditions, I would have to refuse.

My faith is in *Justice,* and that in fact, souls are not *fallen,* but capable of *learning.*

'God' (I say Goddess) is not such a limited figure that She can be essentially controlled or propitiated by observing beliefs and tabooes, and certainly not by being cowed by theological terrors certain people construct.

Call me an ornery old soul who remembers too much of other lives to be fooled by pederasts and panderers and political oportunists about how reality works, ....or maybe someone who learned too well what Christians taught about self-sacrifice, not to mention someone who was taught that every time I was hurt or sick, that it was 'God's punishment' or someone's idea of 'love,' and knew it for a lie, but still suffers the effects; ...that 'Redemption' is not in becoming part of the problem, or in knuckling under to conditioned fears, or externalizing them.

Some simply say and try to 'prove' (convince themselves and others) abstractly, in any way they can, that Non-Christians, or different kinds of Christians, or anyone else, 'must not really be good people, how else can they be so clearly destined for eternal torture?'

Guess what that ends up serving.

If your God is a friend of humanity, then it's time you guys started acting as though he is.

All I see is the model of the abusive father, whichever came first: propitiate arbirtary and random fears of punishment by enforcing abusive systems and calling it 'love.'

My Gods aren't that small.

I like to think yours ain't, either.

Question the Bible and yet believe that soil turned into soil all by itself?

E-favorite, how did you arrive to that state?

But the fearful, and UNBELIEVING,... and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire . (Rev. 21:8)

Unbelief is a sin worthy of hellfire.

HOLY COW

As far as reading the Evangelical Manifesto to help someone to understand the bible, does that mean that Jesus did not need to send the Holy Spirit to help guide us into all Truth?

As far as the Eucharist goes, is that not very explicitly written about in the bible and that when Jesus spoke about it many people stopped following Him?

As far as being born again, just where in the bible does it say just when this may happen, Jesus didn't say anything about some kind of time constraint on this, did He?

Jesus condemned no one, neither do I.

Jesus is either the Savior of Humanity or He isn't, it is either the GOOD NEWS or it isn't, God either wins or He doesn't, a tie is unacceptable.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

MaryCunningham wrote: "Fate: Just back up a little. The argument-from- science states that we are the result of random chance, a series of unforeseen random mutations."

Mutations that were selected for naturally. Not all mutations survive, or are beneficial. You are taking one aspect of evolution, random mutation, and extend it to say that it is all random. It is not. It shows you understand little of the science or the facts behind it. The air in the room you are in is evenly distributed. The pressure is the same everywhere. And the smell of someone's lunch will eventually premiate the entire room. All of this is random movement of molecules under conditions decribed by physics, yet there is an order to it. Consider that evolution seems random and has randomness in its property, yet leads to an order due to the condition of natural selection which can be plainly seen when the runt of the litter does not survive or a sick bird cannot find a mate.

MaryCunningham wrote: "Now assume science *could* create some kind of primitive life, should you also assume that the very *same* set of random mutations would subsequently occur over billions of years (even if we sped it up a billion or so)?"

Scientists have already speculated on this and agree that even if the same conditions existed on earth life would have evolved differently due to the random nature of mutation and chances for organisms to take advantage of an environmental change. And life need not be exclusively made of RNA, DNA etc and even a different coding of DNA could result in differences under exact conditions. But what is clear from the evidence is that once you have a self replicating organism, evolution will apply itself since nature is harsh to those who are not fit, and only the fit pass their genes on to the next generation.

MaryCunningham wrote: "Remember the definition was these mutations were *random*. The odds of the *same* set of millions of mutations occuring a *second* time are negligible. So you see, it just doesn't work."

What doesn't "work"? If you mean it might not lead to human beings I agree. In fact, that is the likely outcome. I agree with the uncertainty of life's evolution. But I also understand the constraints nature puts on an organism and that variation, which does not require mutation, can lead to a very different organism. You don't need random mutations for a wolf to become a chiwawa. DNA studies are showing that much of the difference between humans and chimps is due to the reorganization and amplification/reduction of genes, not pure mutation. I suggest you read up on the subject, unless you are afraid it will shake your faith. One would then wonder why someone ignores truth to maintain faith and what that says about the faith.

Thomas Baum, you said,

"If someone thinks that believing in God is somehow more important to God that how someone treats their fellow human beings than that someone has not a clue about God."

Right you are. People who believe otherwise need to read the Gospels.

Arminius

Hugh: I like your interpretation, (“God doesn't punish people for not believing. He punishes people for their crimes against him") but that’s sure not what I learned in Sunday school and not what Christians tell me here, unless “crimes against him” include not believing in him.

As for “If the stories in the Gospels…were false, they would have been amply rebutted close to the time.” That’s pure speculation. Even today, when news travels very fast, people can be ignorant of facts, or be convinced of something that has no basis in fact.

HUGH

Concerning Pascal's wager, first off I am not a philosopher or theologian, I am just a simple messenger.

If someone thinks that believing in God is somehow more important to God that how someone treats their fellow human beings than that someone has not a clue about God.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Hugh, thanks.

Yes abortion is killing a rudimentary and sometimes more-developed human being by some definitions, (certainly by mine.) I'd suggest that neither of us ever, ever get one.

I hope we're never placed in a situation where any of our loved ones need an abortion, or chooses to have one. In that instance, I hope I could come to understand or at least sympathize with the choice.

I'd revisit one concept: the decision of whether or not to donate organs. Would it be morally inacceptable to choose not to donate, when the knowledge of ability to donate included the fact that it would "save" a human being? Would I be morally in error if my second kidney would save you, otherwise you would die, and you asked me, or you were my brother, and I chose not to donate? Should I not feel a twinge of moral obligation?

In the case of stem-cell research, (in the context of stem-cells not equaling murdered babies) would it be morally acceptable to not fund such research and allow disease processes to proceed to people's deaths, when such research might save them?

(Wow these arguments are old, aren't they?) I'll hear your answer and then be quiet!

@E Favorite:

The Christian claim is not so much that "God will send you to eternal hellfire for not believing words in an ancient text written for and by ancient people," but that God exists, we are accountable to him, his judgment on us is bad news, and forgiveness is available in Christ. In other words, God doesn't punish people for not believing. He punishes people for their crimes against him. Nobody's claiming that God sends good people to hell.

As to lack of evidence about the stories being factual: what evidence do you have that the stories in today's Washington Post are factual? In general, readers ought to approach a text with charity, not skepticism, and critically analyze the contents to see if skepticism is warranted.

Going further: If the stories in the Gospels (to limit the discussion to the most useful scope) were false, they would have been amply rebutted close to the time. Consider Hillary Clinton's recent gaffe by claiming she landed in Bosnia under sniper fire or whatever -- there were plenty of people -- even those who share her politics -- who were more interested in the truth of the matter than the agenda she stands for. The same sort of thing would have happened if the Christian claims were fabricated.

I admit that's an argument from silence, so it's not conclusive. But it does have _some_ merit, doesn't it?

Ah, favourite: I'm not happy with the "you're brainwashed" defence of atheism because, of course, I could merely reply with "No, you are brainwashed into believing there *is* no purpose". It's called a "tu quoque" arg. or "you too!" and frustrating because it's so circular. Causes bad will as well.

Fate: Just back up a little. The argument-from- science states that we are the result of random chance, a series of unforeseen random mutations. Now assume science *could* create some kind of primitive life, should you also assume that the very *same* set of random mutations would subsequently occur over billions of years (even if we sped it up a billion or so)?Remember the definition was these mutations were *random*. The odds of the *same* set of millions of mutations occuring a *second* time are negligible. So you see, it just doesn't work.

On Faith: The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines faith as man's response to God. God reveals Himself to us and man freely responds. One can spurn the Revelation, in which case we can say "He has no faith." Or "He's lost his faith." Or she can accept it, trust in God, in which case we can say "She has faith."

This will be it from me folks. Like I said, this is--hopefully!--a dialogue between evangelicals and seculars. Hopefully Holy Cow will not throw any more lobs my way, but evenso, guess it's his right to do so, even if quite hurtful.

Hugh: “There's a _huge_ downside to being wrong about God.”

Only if you believe that God will send you to eternal hellfire for not believing words in an ancient text written for and by ancient people.

By the way, Hugh, do you have any thoughts on my earlier comments about lack of evidence that Bible stories are factual?

Hugh wrote: "Don't misunderstand: Pascal's Wager proves nothing about the existence of God, but it does plenty to underscore the gravity of the question."

Gravity? Do you think christianity is the only religion out there with ramifications for not believing in the faith or diety? Pascal's wager applies to every belief man has spawned where disbelief has bad results. Have you considered all of these, or just christianity's? To muslims you are doomed. A Hindu might see you reincarnated as something that slithers instead of walks.

Pascal's wager only matters if your world is so small that no other religious ideas exist to be considered. When you do consider them all, your chances of picking the right religion are very small. No matter what you believe, you are making a Pascal wager, and belief in the Christian God does not necessarily make one a winner.

MaryCunningham wrote: "Not greatly original fate, Mary Mary quite contrary's a bit tacky, what?"

Yea, well its one of many things I was trying to do this morning.

I too am Catholic though I have decided to think for myself (so I guess that makes me a "raised Catholic"). I do find the history of the Catholic church's accomadation of scientific proofs sort of, well, laughable. Starting with their actions against Copernicus' findings, then acceptance, then pointing out that the Sun shining even for 6000 years had no explanation and was thus proof of God, only to withdraw that when nuclear fusion was discovered, then its stance against evolution only to give in once the evidence mounted.

Now its life's origin that you hold out as proof of God. Work is ongoing. The science of life's origin is about 50 years old and most of the work has only happened in the last 10 years. All the chemicals of life can be made naturally in old earth conditions: ribose; nucleic acids; amino acids; even cell-like membranes can be made naturally. Certain clays have been found to stabalize these membranes. Ribose has been found to easily cross these natural membranes leading to the idea that ribose was favored for the eventual genetic material.

What will you do Mary when scientists mix chemicals in a tube 10 years from now and a primitive life originates? I guess you can fall back on the origin of the universe for a belief in God, until scientists show how that happened naturally. But hey, no one can say you are not doing your best to keep faith against all the evidence. And no one can say the Catholic church will not once again retreat in the face of science to what is still unknown as its way of holding onto ancient myth as reality.

@Fate:

I hate straining at words, but the Christian understanding of "faith" has historically referred to a warranted trust. It is only recently -- the last century or so -- that it has taken on the connotation of "blind faith" or "leap of faith."

The problem with trust is that you eventually find out whether your trust was well-placed or not. Are there good reasons to trust that the Loch Ness Monster, flying saucers, etc., exist? But as Pascal's Wager asks, what if you're wrong? There's no downside to being wrong about Nessie et al. There's a _huge_ downside to being wrong about God.

Don't misunderstand: Pascal's Wager proves nothing about the existence of God, but it does plenty to underscore the gravity of the question.

Well, Mary – my little treatise on religion wasn't just for you, of course. Others may be listening who may be more open to something besides the religious indoctrination they’ve received so far.

Hugh and Daniel - I don't have a reference, but have heard that it's quite common for a sudden spiritual experience to result in belief in God, whereas atheism is something that grows over time, seeded by observation and investigation.

@Holy Cow:

What should a person conclude from your comment? That's just the sort of dismissible Christianity that the Evangelical Manifesto eschews.

"The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" may be entirely correct theologically, but it is a conclusion based on a robust argument. You can't simply import the entire Bible as an assumption when you're talking to people who reject its authority, to say nothing of its truth.

Insulting the Roman Catholic church, disparaging Mother Theresa, and throwing Bible verses at people is not a winning strategy. You need to make a more compelling case than that.

@Steven:

Great thought! You asked: "What if we consider that "inaction" where action might proceed, is a voluntary choice? To let something happen, while there is a possibility and a decision to be made regarding whether or not we intercede?"

Yes, inaction is a choice, or as some say, "not making a decision is still making a decision." The difference is that there is an obligation to not kill, but there is no obligation to sacrifice oneself to save another. It may be _noble_, but it is not morally obligatory. Thus there is a moral obligation to not abort a baby, but there is no similar obligation to offer one's organs for transplant -- certainly, at least, not while the donor still lives.

It's a thorny issue, but the confusion about "where does it end" should not obscure the clear fact that abortion kills a human being.

Hugh wrote: "On the other hand, if by "prove" mean "draw a sound inference to the best explanation," then I think that's certainly achievable."

Well, of course it is, but by that stretch of logic you can "prove" the existance of the Lock Ness Monster, flying saucers, ancient astronauts, ghosts, Santa Claus and monsters in closets. It is the "proof" man has used for millenia to create explanations of man's origins and other myths. You need to be careful when you stretch the word proof to mean "belief" or "faith", which by definition means without proof. They belief and proof are very different things, though I find many who require proof in order to believe, and so make this stretch. There is a reason, after all, why faith is called "faith".

Not greatly original fate, Mary Mary quite contrary's a bit tacky, what?

And I'm a Catholic not an evangelical. Whilst we believe we have a purpose here upon this earth (life not a happenstance), we have neither qualms nor posture about how the Almighty went about it.

Anyway, try again, this time without the false dichotomy between Christianity and reason (sooo 18th century!)

Favorite my friend:

Thank you for your recitation of the tenets of atheism, which are, no doubt, refreshing for you to recite but are, alas!, for me somewhat tedious to reread for possibly the fifth time--or perhaps the sixth, who's counting?--and that's just on this one blog.

However, I would reread them with great gusto should you encapsulate them in a wee rhyme.

MaryCunningham prosed:
------------------------------------
"Although I like their dazzling twists
I’m glad I’m not an atheist.
Somehow they just cannot explain
How something out of nothing came.
As well they hold life happenstance
The mere result of random chance.
Their construct is a tale too tall,
I can’t conceive it. Not at all!"
------------------------------------

Oh Mary Mary quite contrary
What you say is very scary.
For all the evidence scientists gather
Evolution you say is nothing but blather.
The fruits of science you use each day
Yet evolution's attention you will not pay.
While running to science when you are sick
You ask we ignore science's trick
Of determining the truth of speculation
Resulting in evolution's affirmation.
You cherry pick what science can stand
To maintain belief in invisible God's hand.
Your construct requires delusion and gall,
I can’t conceive it. Not at all!

@Daniel in the Lion's Den (9:19 PM):

I daresay that most Evangelicals come to their beliefs in a sudden moment that is real and substantial to them. The question is whether anyone should long adhere to such a belief. As the late Christian thinker, Francis Schaeffer, said: "There's only one good reason to be a Christian: because it's true."

As to whether one can "prove" the existence of God, it depends on what the meaning of "prove" is (if you'll forgive the Clintonian echo). If by "prove" you mean "establish indubitable certainty," then I agree with you: not much can be "proved" by that standard.

On the other hand, if by "prove" mean "draw a sound inference to the best explanation," then I think that's certainly achievable.

I love your statement: "For if the assumed basis of all reality is not real, then phenomenon that cannot be real, may in fact be real." Your appeal to what "may in fact be real" shows that there _is_ a basis of all reality in your thinking; it is with respect to this basis that you consider things to be "real" or "unreal", "true" or "false." As Philip K. Dick said, "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

Anonymous - no - I was not saying anything about Evolution - I was talking about the ancient texts known the Bible.

Mary Cunningham - the existence of a creator and the veracity of the Christian story are two different issues. Some people think some being or force created the world and then just let it unfold without further intervention. Others believe that the creator is a supernatural being that after creating the world, sent his son, 1,000's of years later (but only to a small group of humans in the middle east), to atone for the sins that the creator visited upon his creation and approves of placing the symbol of his son’s instrument of torture in churches and around the necks of his followers. Others just as fervently believe that God wants them to surgically alter their genitals, or that God's prophet flew to heaven and back on a winged horse and wants women to cover their heads, or that God buried tablets in the hills of NY state and wants adults to wear special underwear.

Nobody really knows, of course, and the atheist rejects the fanciful stories of the various God's adventures and desires as myth and fabrication. Instead of deciding how our world was created, many atheists are curious about it, realizing that it’s something may remain beyond human comprehension.

Perplexed, you can read the Bible. It's all there.

Also, read the Evangelical Manifesto. It will help you to understand the Bible.

Holy water, holy bread, holy rosary, holy cow. Only a person can be holy and it can only happen if Christ lives in his heart. Mother Theresa died not knowing it so she died a lost person despite living Catholicism's doctrines.

"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3) Simple but hard to understand.

Looking for satan? They are everywhere.

Perplexed, you can read the Bible. It's all there.

Also, read the Evangelical Manifesto. It will help you to understand the Bible.

Holy water, holy bread, holy rosary, holy cow. Only a person can be holy and it can only happen if Christ lives in his heart. Mother Theresa died not knowing it so she died a lost person despite living Catholicism's doctrines.

"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3) Simple but hard to understand.

Looking for satan? They are everywhere.

Hugh,
I'm still undecided on the "black or white" with regard to abortion or stem cell research, but you might consider this:

One is voluntary, one is not? What if we consider that "inaction" where action might proceed, is a voluntary choice? To let something happen, while there is a possibility and a decision to be made regarding whether or not we intercede?

It becomes a little less clear to me.

@Mr Mark (7:01 PM): I'm no Mithras expert, but a conversation last night led me to believe that these theories about Christianity being a copycat religion derived from Mithras, Osiris, etc., have been soundly defeated in the scholarly literature as much as 100 years ago. I can't back that up, but really, arguing details in these comments seems to be a dubious enterprise. I've been referred to Lee Strobel's new book, _The Case for the Real Jesus_, for a treatment of this question. One more for the reading list.

So the Christians systematically destroyed pagan manuscripts? Do you have evidence of that? I realize that _proof_ is going to be extraordinarily hard to come by, but are there at least good reasons to think that this anti-pagan conspiracy is more plausible than taking the extant evidence at face value?

And I fully agree with you: "copies in circulation" is not a criterion for veracity. (Insert snarky Dan Brown comment here .) Rather, the value of the wealth of evidence is that we have good reason to believe that what we have now is a reliable reconstruction of the documents as they were originally written. Even Bart "Misquoting Jesus" Ehrman agrees to that. The question is whether these accounts are faithful accounts of fact, or fanciful accounts of fantasy.

So this takes us back to the original point: Christianity makes truth claims about matters of fact and those claims are either true or false with respect to objective reality. If the public square dismisses these claims because of an a priori commitment to exclude religious concerns, isn't the public square valuing its commitment to secularism over a commitment to truth?

Merry Anonymous:

As you said, time flies like an arrow.

But alas, Pseudo attempted contact regarding Noam and and such, but was blocked. A bit odd, that, methinks.

Apparently the notion that statistical grammars have been more successful, at least technologically, than formal ones for NLP was too much to bare for SusieQQ.

Bewildful: be welcome to the fellowship of persiflage!

Good morning!

@Merry Anonymous (6:49 PM): You claim that the church has no business influencing elected officials. This is, essentially, a claim about objective morality. In what is your objective morality grounded? How do you defend this claim?

You asked whether there is a moral equivalence between abortion and letting a person die for want of an organ transplant. The moral _contrast_ should be obvious: the lethal factor in the one case is the abortion; in the other, some disease necessitating a transplant. The abortion is voluntary; the disease is involuntary.

On the other hand, if you want to draw parallels with respect to a person's course of action in response to the lethal factor, your suggestion about forced transplants corresponds to forcing people to barricade abortion clinics. Neither is appropriate; a free society demands that a person's course of action should be voluntary, not coerced.

But surely we're off-topic now.

Merry Anonymous:

As you said, time flies like an arrow.

But alas, Pseudo attempted contact regarding Noam and and such, but was blocked. A bit odd, that.

Apparently the notion that statistical grammars have been more successful, at least technologically, than formal ones was too much to bare for you SusieQQ.

Bewildful: be welcome to the fellowship of persiflage. And beware or taking anyone going by a handle like Pseudo seriously.

The first evangelical was St. Paul. See Professors Crossan and Reed's book, In Search of Paul for an excellent contemporary review of said saint and "pseudo" saints. Ditto for Professor Bruce Chilton's book, Rabbi Paul, especially Chilton's commentary about Paul's "prudish" ways.

With respect to the existence of Jesus:

As per Professor Crossan in his book, Who is Jesus:

"That Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate, as the Creed states, is as certain as anything historical can ever be.

“ The Jewish historian, Josephus and the pagan historian Tacitus both agree that Jesus was executed by order of the Roman governor of Judea. And is very hard to imagine that Jesus' followers would have invented such a story unless it indeed happened.

“While the brute fact that of Jesus' death by crucifixion is historically certain, however, those detailed narratives in our present gospels are much more problematic. "

“My best historical reconstruction would be something like this. Jesus was arrested during the Passover festival, most likely in response to his action in the Temple. Those who were closest to him ran away for their own safety.

I do not presume that there were any high-level confrontations between Caiaphas and Pilate and Herod Antipas either about Jesus or with Jesus. No doubt they would have agreed before the festival that fast action was to be taken against any disturbance and that a few examples by crucifixion might be especially useful at the outset. And I doubt very much if Jewish police or Roman soldiers needed to go too far up the chain of command in handling a Galilean peasant like Jesus. It is hard for us to imagine the casual brutality with which Jesus was probably taken and executed. All those "last week" details in our gospels, as distinct from the brute facts just mentioned, are prophecy turned into history, rather than history remembered."

See Professor Crossan's reviews of the existence of Jesus in his other books especially, The Historical Jesus and also Excavating Jesus (with Professor Jonathan Reed doing the archeology discussion) .

Scripture references to the crucifixion of Jesus from Professor Crossan's, The Historical Jesus:

From the First Stratum,(30-60 AD) with multiple attestations

Crucifixion of Jesus 1) 1 Cor 15:3b; (2a) Gos. Pet. 4:10-5:16,18-20; 6:22; (2b) Mark 15:22-38 = Matt 27:33-51a = Luke 23:32-46; (2c) John 19:17b-25a,28-36; (3) Barn. 7:3-5; (4a) 1 Clem. 16:3-4 (=Isaiah 53:1-12); (4b) 1 Clem. 16.15-16 (=Psalm 22:6-; (5a) Ign. Mag. 11; (5b) Ign. Trall. 9:1b; (5c) Ign. Smyrn. 1.2.

Other NT exegetes to include members of the Jesus Seminar have published similar books with appropriate supporting references.

Part of Crossan's The Historical Jesus has been published online by Googles Books.

See also Wikipedia's review on the historical Jesus to include the Tacitus' reference to the crucifixion of Jesus.

From ask.com,

"One of the greatest historians of ancient Rome, Cornelius Tacitus is a primary source for much of what is known about life the first and second centuries after the life of Jesus. His most famous works, Histories and Annals, exist in fragmentary form, though many of his earlier writings were lost to time. Tacitus is known for being generally reliable (if somewhat biased toward what he saw as Roman immorality) and for having a uniquely direct (if not blunt) writing style."

Mr Mark
I've read the words of Santa Clause
(from "'twas the night before Christmas")

and you're no Santa Clause, either!

Holy Cow (holier than thou) - could you offer at least a modicum of evidence for your slanderous and perfidious attributions regarding the devil and his alleged minions, the Catholic Church, the the Church of England and of course those unholy Satanic favorites, the rebellious atheists. BTW, do you have evidence of the devil? I understand he doesn't photograph well.

While Thomas Baum no doubt has good intentions, I doubt the sincerity of your motives.......you'll need something more than just your say-so. Perhaps you have a copy of Sammael's Manifesto (no, we are not discussing Lucifer. According to myth and for the sake of accuracy, he is still an archangel in good standing).

What is your authority and exactly what is the basis for your making such an assinine statement in the first place, if you don't mind my asking?

I'm beginning to believe you may be one of those mendacious Protestants ........

>>the repressed prude Paul was in matters sexual.

Mr Mark, Ive read the writings of Paul.

Mr Mark, you're no Paul

And believe me, that is a complement...but meant only for Paul.

(This guy must think the 'prudes' today make the world a worse place. "Oh yes, those who are not prudes have made it such a better world in 'matters sexual'."..seems he to expound. How dim.)

Have a wee bit of doggerel though:

Although I like their dazzling twists
I’m glad I’m not an atheist.
Somehow they just cannot explain
How something out of nothing came.
As well they hold life happenstance
The mere result of random chance.
Their construct is a tale too tall,
I can’t conceive it. Not at all!

Hello Jihadist,

I’ve been having a wee bit of trouble posting here, so my ‘contributions’ are sporadic. Don’t know what caused it, I was responding to an atheist’s contention that the Gospel of Judas “changed everything” by pointing out the whole National Geographic fanfare was false. Their translators had stupidly, provocatively-- intentionally?—turned “demon” into “spirit” and “from” into “for.” The Coptic text referred to Judas as a “daimon” which the ‘experts’ translated as a ‘spirit’. (The Greek word for spirit is ‘pnuema’). In Coptic lit. a “daimon” is always taken to mean “demon.” There’s a lot more on a lot more errors and any interested can find it on tinyurl.com/6dbxcu (just add www). But it’s interesting to see how the fake version took on a life of its own and has been reverberating around atheist blogs for the past two years, obvious errors notwithstanding. (Guess one can find a parallel in the assertions here that there is no historical evidence for the life of Jesus, copious evidence, not just from the Bible, but from the writings of the early Church fathers to the contrary. One remarkable feature of the first 300 years of Christianity is just how much literary activity amongst the Christians there was especially if we come it with what came from non Christian writers.)

Anyway, there I thought I was and the next minute I wasn’t!

Not too much to say on the current question except I thought it noteworthy that both ‘sides’ (secular and Christian evangelical) used Europe as an example. A good one for seculars, a real bogeyman for the evangelicals (“we don’t want to become like them”). I’m not sure how to answer either of those ‘charges’ so I’ll remain silent.

Regarding the trials in the UK: there have been two legal cases regarding Muslim women. The first was a Muslim schoolgirl flouting an agreed upon (with the local Muslim elders) uniform code by wearing a different garment, one that left only her face and hands exposed. She was expelled and lost her court case upon appeal. The ruling was that there are alternatives: girls only Islamic schools where such a uniform is allowed and she had known of them before she entered the first, more ‘liberal’ school.

The second case was a Muslim teaching assistant who challenged her school’s ruling that prohibited a ‘niqab’, a top to toe black garment, with slits only for the eyes. She lost and had to pay court costs. The ruling was that such a garment inhibited communication with her charges, as well as frightening a few of the more timorous. Her case was not helped by the disclosure that she had attended her initial interview with her employer wearing only an uncontroversial hijab (Muslim headscarf), switching to the niqab after she took the job.

Dear Sir or Madam Bewildful,

Per your recent inquiry and report, not having heard from Pseudo in many hours, what with space-time compression, perhaps days, I am taking it upon my person to welcome you into the Fellowship of Language Sportsmen, by the authority vested in me as the apparent sole member of said Fellowhip and, hence, de facto, as it were, holder of all offices. May I say that I am sickened, aporetically speaking, thesis-wise, to learn of the near disastrous event, essential indeterminacy, the impossible, the (un)promised end?

I am in earnest hope that there has been no slippage, but remain deeply consternated, ineffably trepitdatious thesis-wise about your future well-being.

Yours,
M. Anonymous

E Favorite wrote " no one disputes that the bible exists as an ancient text, the question is - are the stories in it factual? and the answer is - there is no evidence that they are. "

Are you refering to Evolution? The Bible speaks of Israel, Caesar, Persia, etc and they all exist or existed. Evolution speaks of a "common ancestry" and so far it's all talk and no evidence.

Years from now, when places like England will be devastated and wiped out and it's history forgotten. Some future evolutionist would dig up the grave of Darwin and would proclaim, "I FOUND IT !. I found the bones that would PROVE the EXISTENCE of our COMMON ANCESTRY".

Take a bow. Bravo !!

Thomas Baum wrote " I have met satan also..."

The Vatican is the seat of satan and all the priests are his representatives. All major churches which have a linkup with the Vatican like the Episcopalian Church are his mercenaries. Atheism is the rebel side of satan and atheists are his alter egos.

Have you met one? Of course.

Expanding the definition of evangelicals: (new entries found on global Google)

1. "Propheteers" for profit

Other "Propheteers" for profit?? Mohammed and Paul

2. Militants with a religious zeal for a cause. e.g. Muslims, Zionists, Sunnis, Shiites, members of the IRA.

3. Militants who erroneously follow the "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) of a religion.

e.g. the "fems" of Islam:

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

This agenda continues as shown by the assassination of Bhutto, the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the Islamic bombers of the trains in the UK and Spain, the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani “koranics”, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases, the Taliban nut jobs, and the Filipino “koranics”.

And who funds this muck and stench of terror? The warmongering, Islamic, Shiite terror and torture theocracy of Iran aka the Third Axis of Evil and also the Sunni "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.

Dear Merry Anonymous,

Unrelated to the current thread, this is to thank you for your recent inquiry into my well-being, aporetically speaking, thesis-wise, and to inquire as to whether a decision has been made regarding my membership in the Language Sportsmen Fellowship. (Noticing that Pseudo has ceased to post, I am addressing mysef to you, alone.)

May I mention that your inquiry into my welfare, aporetically speaking, was providential? As it happened, shortly after our last correspondence, I found myself plunged, once again, knee deep thesis-wise, when I recalled having errands to run and left the house, the better to run them. No sooner had foot hit pavement than there came to my ears the resounding roar of horrible, wretched crashing, thrashing fluidity.

Knowing full well that the origin was aporetic and fearing for the health and welfare of my loved ones and neighbors, I confess that had I not been en route, I most certainly would have turned back to see if there had been any injuries. As matters stood, those I'd left behind were never far from my thoughts as I made my purchases.

Upon my return, I found that the devastation had not been utter, although my son had water in his ears, and there had been some damage to my walls. Truth be told, a couple of aporias were still flowing around in the livingroom. A peculiar thing - nothing had been damaged thesis-wise. Any theories?

Awaiting your reply,

Bewildful

Hello Perplexed,

I know, and a wee bit more tongue in cheek on mini-minor, semi-minor, minor, semi-major, demi-major and major thoughts of complex words reflecting the complex thoughts of a complex panelist to perplex us.

How about "fallen planet" taking us in all sorts of thought directions as stated in an essay by one panelist? Not earth or the world, but "planet", and positing that "redemption" is more important than "reformation" of the "fallen planet".

I may have misunderstood the concept completely as little, little questions arise. Which planet? From where did it fell from? To where is it falling? What state was the "planet" in before it "fell"?

What state was the "fallen planet" in right now that it needs "redemption" over "reformation"? Does "redemption" entails restoration to the original state of the "fallen planet"? Is "redemption" easier and less stressful than "reformation", or is it the other way around?

Is "reformation" less important than "redemption" for the "fallen planet"? Is the planet prevented from falling further by the gravitional pull of the sun in going in orbit around it?

Is one a "fallen man", "fallen woman" or "fallen personkind" who fell on a "fallen planet" who don't need to "reform" but only to "redeem" oneself? Is one like a redeemable coupon found in magazines?

So many interesting theological, philosophical and scientific questions the panelist raised on "fallen planet", "redemption" and "reformation" in his essay.

Regards
"J"

**************************************************

Hello Arminius,

Between a panelist whose columns are syndicated in some 500 newspapers and pussycat, I certainly pay more attention on what is written by the former rather than by the latter.

Fallen armies, fallen structures, fallen women etc, I can understand. "Fallen planet"? Where did that come from? Perhaps the panelist meant to say, "fallen man" instead, and it was just a typo.

I have not the faintest idea what is meant by a "fallen planet" and how this earth, this world of ours is characterised and categorised as such.

Regards
"J"

More for Hugh on the "Gone with the wind" analogy.

Imagine it's a couple hundred years from now and someone picks up an old copy of the book, with the front page that says "fiction" ripped out. They've never heard of the book, but have vaguely heard of the civil war (remember it's 200 years from now and there have been lots of other wars, unfortunately).

They love the book and assume it's a true story! They do a little checking and find out that it tracks with the civil war closely enough. Then they start checking on the characters and can't find any records and there's no mention of any of the events specific to the book (and not general to the civil war) anywhere except in "Gone with the Wind" itself. They come to realize it's a fictional story, not a true story. Surprising, but not devastating, because they had not "invested" in the characters in being real - just figured they were.

However, if they HAD thought the characters were real, they’d be very confused and maybe resistant to accepting that it was actually fiction. They might then be susceptible to phony accounts of trumped up “evidence” for the story.

Imagine other scenarios: if their parents, their best friend and their favorite teacher said that it was a true story, because they were also ignorant. That would be more reason to believe, even in the absence of supporting facts. Imagine if they had been taught in school that the story was true and told that if they didn’t believe it they would suffer for eternity. Imagine they are told they must have faith, despite the lack of evidence, that the story is factual and be suspect of anyone who suggests otherwise.

Greetings Jihadist - a little tongue in cheek don't you know?? It's puzzling how small words can precipitate large thoughts and a cascade of complex concepts and beliefs in a moment's time.

IMO, consciousness is the real mystery at the base of all things. That being the case, there's not so much difference between atheists and true believers after all.........

regards -

Jihadist, Oh, Jihadist,

Where are you? Pussycat needs another training session. We're waiting!

Arminius

For Mr. Hugh

Your struggle to prove the existence of God, and the validity of Christianity to a skeptical audience cannot succeed and will get you frustrated. If you require scienctific proof, then you should just go ahead and be an atheist, because I do not think you are going to find any scientific proof.

My belief in God goes along the lines of a Providence at the foundation of all being. It is not based on antiquated Christian, Islamic, or Jewish scriptures, nor Hindu, nor Bhuddist, either for that matter; it is, like Ariminius's, an inner feeling, the expression of an inner will that I feel, and that I do not really excerise any control over.

My belief in God is not based on a belief in an Intelligent Designer that causes all things to be. My belief in God derives from the seeming reality of the laws of nature, which do indeed seem real, but which upon brief contemplation, can be seen to be not real at all. For if the assumed basis of all reality is not real, then phenomenon that cannot be real, may in fact be real.

I believe this sincerely, deeply, intensely, and I came to this realization of belief, all of a sudden, in a sudden moment. So, these are not just my word games, or my mind games, but this is something real and substantial to me, even if I may not be able to communicate well to others.

, Jihadist, Jihadist,

Hmmm, "obfusing" again about everything "evangelistic" except the flawed "evangelism" (militant zeal for a cause) of Islam.

Your statement:
"By the way, all organised and institutionalised religion is human and humanity based with flaws and all, just like humans are" recognizes said flaws."

So when are Muslims going to correct these flaws and errors especially the militant zeal demonstrated 24/7 by the 800 year blood feud between Sunni and Shiite which is now showing its ugly head in Lebanon??????

As a reminder and for those not into Islamic history: The major flaws of Islam:

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 Shiites are less than human or Sunnis are less than human depending on what Islamic cult you belong to.

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 Perplexed,

You : "Now don't rile me up - don't say...Manifesto, ok??"

I do tend to think of "manifesto" as you do. Specifically as when political parties comes out with them. It is also associated with politics, and am equally "perplexed" then, as you are.

I have read the "Evangelical Manifesto". It seem to seek to divorce evangelicals from any political affiliations, and to be defined theologially rather than ideologically or politically. Ironic use of "manifesto" it would seem, but pragmatic to be issue driven rather than specific set alignment focussed.

The said manifesto seem to call for a tempering for the, shall I say, some excesses by some evangelicals in the public square in getting their points in the public square lest it becomes "naked" of faith and religion.

It seems to be a call for a more considered and level headed approach in getting the evangelical message across. A rebranding, so to speak, of public perception of evangelicals in reminding what they believe in and should stand for, redefining their "approaches", and thus "the look". A rethinking and "plastic surgery".

The manifesto could, perhaps be called, "A Declaration by A Few Moderate and Moderating Evangelicals". Short form - "A Group of Evangelicals' Declaration"? Or just "An Evangelical Declaration"?

The list of signatories of the Manisfesto are telling and from various backgrounds. It would seem that this group seems to see what is happening within and without and in putting out the Evangelical Manifesto, did engage evangelicals into talking on what they believe in, who they are, what their niche are in the world.

And, all the same, evangelism is to go on but after a rebranding, different marketing and targeting approach.

**************************************************

Hello Mary Cunningham,

Good to see you here. Yes, China, Cuba and North Vietnam are examples of perhaps, not "coersive secularism", but "coersive authoritarian non-religionism"?

Thanks for the examples and clarifications you gave in possible state/judiciary so-called "coersive secularism" in Europe. I was also thinking of specific incidences and lawsuits brought by some to the courts as happened in UK, France and Germany on being expelled from the workplace for wearing "symbols" associated with faith.

The judiciary and lawsuits brought re freedom for religious expression in the public square (workplace, schools etc) and religious expression impinging on the consitutional/legal rights of others in the public square are a whole other discussion.

Regards
"J"

E FAVORITE

I have met God and God is a Trinity, this is either a fact or not or I could be delusional as Concerned the Christian seems to think.

I have met satan also and he can try to come across as mister nice guy but he isn't, this also is either a fact or not.

If both of these facts are true and they are whether anyone believes them or not then God must have had a good reason for not only these events happening but also other events.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

E Fav,

Yes, Virginia, there is a Rhett Butler. He exists just as surely as

Hugh - no one disputes that the bible exists as an ancient text, the question is - are the stories in it factual? and the answer is - there is no evidence that they are.

Lots of even older stories exist - Aesop's fables, greek and roman myths - we treasure them still and we also recognize them as stories and myth, not fact.

Also think about "Gone with the Wind" - the civil war certainly happened; many, perhaps all, of the generals mentioned in the book were factual, as were all the cities and towns. There were certainly people LIKE the southern belles and loyal slaves and dashing southern gentleman who were portrayed in the book, but the specific characters - Mammy, Scarlett, Rhett - and the story itself are FICTIONAL and everyone knows it.

As far as being rude, spiteful, hateful and condescending, from what I have seen on these posts it really doesn't matter what label someone applies to themself, if they are, then they are.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Merry Anonymous writes to Hugh:

"Fourth, is abortion is wrong, isn't it wrong to let born babies, children adults, die from want of an organ, blood, bone marrow? Shall we register you to donate a kidney to a child who needs one to live if we find that you can do without yours? Who the hell are you, any man, especially, but any woman, too, to tell women what they must do with their bodies?"

Good idea. Let all the "Pro-Life" people put their bodies where their big mouths are. Let's register the men first for bone marrow, blood, and organ donations, then the "Pro-Life" women. Maybe the "United States Organization for the PRotection of the Rights of Atheists/Agnostics" could put this first on its agenda.

Wake up, Hugh. Morality is coming.

Dear Hugh -

I don't know where you get your info on Mithras, but you're wrong.

The earliest mention of Mithras is a Persian version of the god, and that's in a treaty dated to 1400BC. Now, this particular Mithras isn't the same Mithras as that of Roman beliefs.

For the Roman Mithras, we turn to the writings of Plutarch and Servilius who both say that Mithrasism was imported to Rome by Pompey in 70BC. The cult of Mithras ran for about 400 years. How or where you got info that Christianity antedates Mithrasism, I don't know.

But, let's not get hung up on Mithras who many aver - erroneously, IMO - served as a whole-hog template for Christ. I don't say that. I just mention him as an example of SOME similarities with Jesus, not all.

And, there are big differences between Mithras and Jesus. For instance, Mithras lived entirely in the spirit world, a life that hardly resembles that of a corporeal Jesus (though, if you read my earlier post on Paul, I believe Paul saw Jesus as a purely spiritual being).

Where you are quite correct is that the extant evidence for the ritualistic similarities between Mithrasism and Xianity all occur *after* Christianity was well established, and in this respect, one must rightfully admit that its hard to know who is imitating who. I'm more than willing to score that one for the Xians, for it would appear that by the second century, Mithrasism was copying the rituals of Xianity, and not the other way around.

As far as the 5,000 sources making Xianity the best-attested of all ancient texts: that sounds impressive until one realizes that the Xians systematically went about destroying all of the pagan manuscripts they could get their hands on. Who knows, there could have been tens of thousands of pagan manuscripts around at one time or another. Would that sheer number give them any claim to truth, especially when and if they went off on some supernatural explanation for things? I'd say, "no."

If not, then why extend such a courtesy to the Bible? For, just as 20 or 200 or 2-million copies of some pagan myth do not add to the veracity of the claims of that myth, neither do 5,000 manuscripts relating the Xian version of things add even an iota of truth to the subject. A myth is a myth whether it's written once or copied - faithfully - 5,000 times, and no more so than in fables that relate supernatural explanations for things, both real (as in an event that can be demonstrated as being historic) or imagined.

Nice chatting.

Hugh writes:

Sure, those are questions about matters of objective fact. Either Mohammed rode to heaven in a chariot, or he didn't. Etc. Ruling the question out of public debate because there are religious strings attached ignores the fact that the claim is either true or false. We ought only to believe something if we have reason to believe it is true; even Paul wrote that he would walk away from Christianity if it could be demonstrated that Jesus did not rise from the dead.

And to your question, "Why are Popes, ministers, et al exerting influence on the presidency, Congress, etc., on matters concerning stem cell research, abortion, etc." -- again, there's an either/or question that needs to be asked (using abortion as an example): either abortion is objectively wrong, or it is not. If it is objectively wrong, then attempting to influence the government to abolish it is appropriate -- even obligatory."

First, if Mohammed's ride is to be included, I would have to insist on the Golem, a personal favorite of mine. Either he was in my apartment last night, or he was not. Numerous accounts of the golem exist. As for my apartment, several people saw him leave, not just me, and accounts will soon be published in our neighborhood weekly.

Second, attempts to prove the negative will rile even those agnostics and atheists who most empathize with you.

Third, in a secular society the Church (any denomination) has no business influencing my elected officials. This holds true even from the perspective of freedom of religion. Judaism, for instance, does not have the same view of abortion as Christianity.

Fourth, is abortion is wrong, isn't it wrong to let born babies, children adults, die from want of an organ, blood, bone marrow? Shall we register you to donate a kidney to a child who needs one to live if we find that you can do without yours? Who the hell are you, any man, especially, but any woman, too, to tell women what they must do with their bodies?

Mr Mark,

Damnit, I laughed so hard I choked!! Thanks for the belly laugh.

Yes, there are problems with Paul, especially with no details there. I have no answer yet.

Paul liking heavy metal? I'm laughing again! And you are quite correct, I ain't no prude!

Thanks,

Arminius

Merry Anonymous wrote:

"Did Mohammed ride to heaven in a chariot? Was a golem created in Prague?"

Sure, those are questions about matters of objective fact. Either Mohammed rode to heaven in a chariot, or he didn't. Etc. Ruling the question out of public debate because there are religious strings attached ignores the fact that the claim is either true or false. We ought only to believe something if we have reason to believe it is true; even Paul wrote that he would walk away from Christianity if it could be demonstrated that Jesus did not rise from the dead.

And to your question, "Why are Popes, ministers, et al exerting influence on the presidency, Congress, etc., on matters concerning stem cell research, abortion, etc." -- again, there's an either/or question that needs to be asked (using abortion as an example): either abortion is objectively wrong, or it is not. If it is objectively wrong, then attempting to influence the government to abolish it is appropriate -- even obligatory.

Arminius,

Works for you is a blessing, no irony intended.
I am no conversionist. Just abhor efforts to lead me to the light.

From your comments, I judge that you do not object to my view.

M. Anonymous

Hi, JAC,

I never have considered becoming a Muslim. It simply never occurred to me. I have no objection to Islam, except in its extreme cases. But I also object to extremists in any religion.

I am not sure why I never considered it. But I never considered any other religion at the time. I had, and do have, more knowledge than the average about the world's major religions. I suppose that I went back to Christianity because it was the one I was most familiar with. But, truth be told, I don't really know.

Arminius

Speaking of the Public Square, I would like to know, how to get the clerics out of the presidency and Congress. Amen.

Pace a Religionist, Hopkins: Is there any any/Is there nowhere nohow nonesuch?

Going from memory here. Could have erred in lineation.

MA

@Mr Mark:

I'll rephrase my point about "objective fact:"

It's a simple yes-or-no question about _a matter of_ objective fact.

I admit there is plenty of opinion and conjecture as to whether the claim corresponds to reality.

Dear Arminius -

Your take on the reality of Jesus reminds me a lot of St Paul, who said quite clearly that Jesus revealed himself in visions. My reading of Paul's many epistles (including the ones NOT written by him) has led me to conclude that he didn't believe in a corporeal Jesus at all, but, rather, in a spiritual being who fought his battles and conquered death in the spirit world.

How else to explain why Paul doesn't bother with the specifics of Jesus' lifestory? How else to explain Paul's insistence that there are no physical bodies in heaven? Let's remember, Paul's letters were written well before the Gospels were penned, ie: before a corporeal life story was fabricated to make the god wholly human.

The big differences: I don't think Paul would like heavy metal music as do you; and, I get the distinct feeling that you're not the repressed prude Paul was in matters sexual.

@Mr Mark:

Thanks for the civil public debate.

"No historic or archaeological evidence?" By any reckoning, the New Testament is the best-attested set of documents from antiquity, with over 5,000 manuscripts dating to within a generation or two of the events they describe. These provide an ability to reconstruct what the original autographs contained that is unmatched by any ancient primary source material. And why insist on evidence outside the NT? The documents included in the NT were included precisely because they offered the best accounts available.

You conclude that it is an embrace of folly to think Jesus existed; I say that the claim that Jesus existed is a very modest, eminently defensible claim. You base your position on the existence of mythical gods whose stories resemble his. Nobody claims that the Mithras accounts predate Jesus (they fall somewhere in the 1st to 4th century CE), so that's out as even a potential basis for a "Jesus myth." And even if the Dionysus or Horus myths bear some retrospective resemblance to the Gospel accounts of Jesus' ministry, that does not cast sufficient doubt to overcome the evidence for the resurrection accounts: the empty tomb itself, the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, the improbable endurance of the resurrection account despite powerful adversaries, the discontinuity between the Jewish and Christian concepts of the resurrection, etc. Much work has been done in this area by significant scholars; the "Jesus never existed" angle is, to put it crudely, "*so* 20th century."

And really -- Hitchens and Dawkins ought not be toying with philosophy. Hitchens is a brilliant rhetorician and Dawkins is an eminent biologist, but their forays into philosophical attacks on theism have been unfortunate -- there is a quiet chorus of atheist philosophers who wish the whole "new atheist" movement would just go away.

At the end of the day, the Christian claims offer a compelling explanation for the evidence and have unrivaled explanatory power and scope when it comes to the most challenging problems and questions we can ask. The fact that this is news to most people is ample testimony for the need for better public debate on these matters.

M Anon,

I am aware that my argument opens a scholastic can of worms. My feeling is something that has evolved in my thinking on the subject. I am no biblical scholar, to be sure. But I will continue to pursue the subject.

Yes, it does work for me.

Arminius

Arminius, a late comment to one of your posts in another thread.

You said "As to having my own 'inner knowledge' of God, and then diving into the Gospels and the teachings of Jesus - well... the quest continues."

A question if I may: after having your 'inner knowledge' of God, did you consider to become a muslim? why yes or why not?

I hope we have the privilege of your answer, which I anticipate quite interesting coming from a trustworthy person like you.

Peace to all and the best wishes,

JAC

Dear Steven -

Thanks for the reminder on the Invasion of Jerusalem by the Resurrected Zombies. This "true" story from Matthew gets lost in the sea of "John 3:16" signs.

I've also asked the same questions that seem to intrigue you about the Zombies. Did they make poo..or WERE they poo?

Well, it's in the infallible Bible, so it must be an objective fact, must it not?

One interesting and seldom considered sidebar to this story: whenever a Xian dies, we hear that that person is "now sitting next to Jesus." Not-huh. Not according to the Bible. In fact, the Bible says the dead will stay in their graves UNTIL the final trumpet sounds at which time they'll be resurrected. Until that time, they're worm meat.

One must realize this "truth" to fully appreciate Jesus' telling the thief on the cross, "TODAY, you will be wife me in paradise." According to Jesus, there would be no mouldering for this thief until that yet-to-be-sounded tocsin rings out. No sir, the thief was going to paradise TODAY...though that raises another question: did the thief have to make the trip to hell with Jesus as well? It would seem that there was a 2 or 3-day delay in being in paradise "today."

Perhaps the word "today" needs redefining when used in a Biblical context along with "fact" and "objective?"

Arminius writes:
Anyway, one idea for consideration is that if the Gospels were an invention, the inventor(s) should have done a more consistent job of it. And I can't imagine so many gospels (as you know, many more than the canonical four) could have sprung up out of whole cloth without a single source.

These kinds of arguments will get you in trouble. There are several OT/Tanakh writers, some of them contemporaneous. Does that mean that what they reported was factual?

As I've said before, OT/Tanakh studies is extremely complicated, relying on all sorts of evidence, and some matters regarded as closed by one group are regarded as open by others. That is not the point here. If scholars followed your logic, they would drop it all, and decide that the Tanakh/OT is factual by virtue of multiple contemporaneous authors, some of them inconsistent with others. End of discussion.

In my opinion, what works for you works for you. 'Nuf said. No justification necessary.

Just thinking.

Hugh,

I am a believer, and I do believe that Jesus rose from the dead. But that does NOT make it an objective fact.

Arminius

Mr Mark,

So why are you holding back? Just let it all hang out and let us know what you really think... (!)

You may remember how I stand on this: I accept that Jesus is historical. I am well aware of the lack of historical proof. But there is a profound difference between my stand and that of Hugh. I am not the product of a book, or of religion. After - note, after! - my spiritual experience - again, note spiritual, not religious - I did start reading the Gospels. With a lot of skepticism. After the first reading, I actually decided, this stuff is seriously weird, no way am I a Christian. For some reason, I read them again. I thought, it's kind of interesting, starting to hang together, despite differences. This guy Jesus really had something to say. Third reading, well, maybe. Fourth reading, YES! All over a period of about 3 years. Despite differences, it all hangs together in my mind. Anyway, one idea for consideration is that if the Gospels were an invention, the inventor(s) should have done a more consistent job of it. And I can't imagine so many gospels (as you know, many more than the canonical four) could have sprung up out of whole cloth without a single source.

Oh, well, my friend, we continue to agree to disagree.

Arminius

Merry Anon writes:

"Are there no questions more deserving of civil debate in the public square?

Yes, and here is one. Why are Popes, ministers, et al exerting influence on the presidency, Congress, etc., on matters concerning stem cell research, abortion, etc."

Let the long overdue debate begin.

Mr Mark

How about this one: "Matthew 27:52-53

"..and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many."

Now there's some information! I'd ask why we should limit ourselves into thinking only one man rose from the dead, and to limit our inquiry into only one claim--what about all these other guys? Did they die again? Did they go home? Were they hungry? Did they have to explain to their living wives and husbands that "we're back!"

That's one you're guaranteed NEVER to hear a sermon about, except perhaps from Benny Hinn. I think I heard once Benny talk about having someone come back to life because their cold dead hand was placed on to the television screen by a believing mourner.

Is there no end to truth claims?

Jihadist, Jihadist, Jihadist,

Hmmm, "obfusing" again about everything "evangelistic" except the flawed "evangelism" (militant zeal for a cause) of Islam.

Your statement:
"By the way, all organised and institutionalised religion is human and humanity based with flaws and all, just like humans are" recognizes said flaws."

So when are Muslims going to correct these flaws and errors especially the militant zeal demonstrated 24/7 by the 800 year blood feud between Sunni and Shiite which is now showing its ugly head in Lebanon??????

Hugh writes:

"Put another way: did a man rise from the dead, and in so doing, authenticate his claims about the nature of God and the fate of mankind? That's a simple yes-or-no question about an objective fact. It is not a matter of opinion or conjecture. Is there a question more deserving of civil debate in the public square?"

You could add:

Did Mohammed ride to heaven in a chariot?

Was a golem created in Prague?
----------------------------------------
Are there no questions more deserving of civil debate in the public square?

Yes, and here is one. Why are Popes, ministers, et al exerting influence on the presidency, Congress, etc., on matters concerning stem cell research, abortion, etc.

Dear Hugh -

One more thought. You wrote:

"Put another way: did a man rise from the dead, and in so doing, authenticate his claims about the nature of God and the fate of mankind? That's a simple yes-or-no question about an objective fact. It is not a matter of opinion or conjecture."

Oh, come now. How can you call a fable as ludicrous as that of a crucified, dead and buried man rising from the dead after three days in the dirt an "objective fact?" Please, look up the words "objective" and "fact" in any dictionary. While you're at it, look up the words "conjecture" and "opinion" as well.

YOU may think such wild beliefs qualify as "objective facts," but to do so you must invent new definitions for those words.

You are - in fact - requesting a simple yes or no answer to a proposition of HIGH conjecture and UNFOUNDED opinion. Calling such a thing a fact doesn't make it so. You know it, I know it and so does everyone else on this blog.

Please, stop this line of thinking. It insults everybody's intelligence and demeans the language in the process.

Evangelicals: "Propheteers" for profit

Other "Propheteers" for profit?? Mohammed and Paul

Dear Hugh -

Thanks for your response. You wrote:

"Let's cut to the chase; it comes down to this: if Jesus rose from the dead, I propose that this authenticates his teachings: that God exists; etc..."

Well, I don't believe that Jesus ever existed. I say that because a) there is no historic or archaeological evidence to support his existence outside of the NT (which cannot in any way, shape or form be considered a reliable historic document), and b) the life story of Jesus contains so many elements that are common to many other patently mythical gods (notice, I do not say that his life story is a carbon copy of any other imaginary being) that to imagine the the Jesus amalgam of said elements is the one FACTUAL account is to embrace folly.

So, in my view, we can't even get to the place where we can address the challenge you raise, anymore than we could seriously address the challenge if the god we were speaking about was Dionyses, Horus or Mithras.

As far as, "the cosmological argument, the teleological argument, and the moral argument" for god's existence - pretty thin ice, I'd say. Ice that has been broken through quite resoundingly by Russell, Hitchens, Dawkins and others, to name but the most well-known logicians on the atheist side of the fray.

Anonymous said:

"Arminius and Mr. Mark are in agreement (sort of) on something. As I live and breathe...."

Actually not the first time, nor will it be the last. Although we have had our differences.....

Arminius

Lisa E says:

"I'm just trying to relate to these people on their level."

Well, that just about says it all, now doesn't it?

@Mr Mark: yes, I'm saying that Christian truth claims have a place in serious debate. The definition of "truth" is basically this: if it corresponds to reality, that's "true." If it disagrees with reality, that's "false".

@ABB3W: I agree fully; two religions with contradictory truth claims cannot both be right with respect to their claims. But their claims do have a truth value.

As to sticking with the evidence, there are plenty of evidence-based arguments for Christian truth claims, starting with the existence of God: the cosmological argument, the teleological argument, and the moral argument, to name but three of the most prominent. (I am unaware of any arguments for the Flying Spaghetti Monster.)

I'll grant that these don't establish that the God of the Bible necessarily exists, but taken together, they do establish the _necessity_ of a transcendent, immaterial, timeless, powerful, moral, intelligent, personal being who is the cause of the universe, the architect of life, and the grounding of morality. The God whom Jesus of Nazareth taught about fits those criteria and is therefore an adequate explanation for morality, life, and the universe.

Let's cut to the chase; it comes down to this: if Jesus rose from the dead, I propose that this authenticates his teachings: that God exists; we are accountable to him; his judgment on us is bad news; and Jesus died to satisfy God's judgment against us in our place. These are the truth claims Evangelicals want considered in the public square. They are questions of truth first and religion second.

Put another way: did a man rise from the dead, and in so doing, authenticate his claims about the nature of God and the fate of mankind? That's a simple yes-or-no question about an objective fact. It is not a matter of opinion or conjecture. Is there a question more deserving of civil debate in the public square?

Arminius and Mr. Mark are in agreement (sort of) on something. As I live and breathe....

M Anon,

Did a quick google. Doctors Without Borders are even now in Burma, and on their way to China. They are the truest of saints, religion or not.

Arminius

Arminius,

Yes, and they are not alone. The work led by one man, sans religious agenda, in Haiti and other countries is remarkable. I wish I could recall his name. All his work centers on leaving his work with native trained physicians. Hatian American doctors from ivy league colleges have returned to Haiti to work with him and are dedicating their lives to this work.

Merry Anonymous writes:

"Lisa E,

"As an atheist, I have often been distressed by the contempt I hear in my fellow atheists' remarks.

"However, the facts are that organized religions, not merely Christianity and Catholicsm, btw, are powerful, have been responsible for atrocities, continue to be. As well, "conversionism," as some posters call it is offensive, not only to atheists but to members of different religious groups."

And there it is in a nutshell. Well spoke, MA.

M Anon,

Great post. A few thoughts here:

Yes, the missionaries should go to feed, clothe, heal. Not to preach. They should show their faith by example. As this quotation from Gandhi shows, when he was asked by a missionary why so few converted: "The day you stop talking about how good Christianity is and start living it, everyone will want to become a Christian."

As to sending doctors to heal and not preach, 'Doctors Without Borders' is doing this now, even as I write.

Arminius

Lisa E,

As an atheist, I have often been distressed by the contempt I hear in my fellow atheists' remarks.

However, the facts are that organized religions, not merely Christianity and Catholicsm, btw, are powerful, have been responsible for atrocities, continue to be. As well, "conversionism," as some posters call it is offensive, not only to atheists but to members of different religious groups.

In secular societies, Popes should not be asked their views on abortion, ditto ministers, etc.

As for other religions, we Americans are very limited in our knowledge of what goes on within our own borders, let alone Europe, Asia, etc.

Awhile back someone posted a poem called "Voices," I believe, by a Sabah prominent.
Now there is a place that will explode again and big time. Religion and exploitation do so often accompany one another.

I have no objection to Religion. Don't force your views on me. When I tell you I'm not interested, I'm not interested. Do not send missionaries to impoverished countries to convert the benighted. Feed them. Clothe them. Heal them. Go home.

Government: Keep the government that represents me free from religious agendas.

Public domain: Atheists, agnostics belong in any discussion involving religion. Perhaps, we need to institutionalize:

The United States Organization for the PRotection of the Rights of Atheists/Agnostics.

We could send doctors, medicine, food to those who need it with no other agenda than humanity.

I am not planning on reading this manifesto because I am not interested in this type of thing. But isn't it just, basically, a position paper, a policy statement that is proclaimed by those without power?

I am sure that a few prominent Evangelical leaders will sign it, but I am also sure that there will be other prominent Evengelical leaders who will disapprove of it, or even condemn it.

It is a position paper that reflects the policy goals of, not even a group, but like-minded people, who are characterized and described by a name, which is, itself, pretty vague: "Evangelcial".

The word 'atheism' evokes the same kind of emotional response in some folks as the word
'liberal' evokes in others - and possibly both words in tandem send still others into an absolute fit of rage.....curious thing that.

Whole worlds of lost souls conjured up in a couple of words. No wonder some folks don't cotton to the likes of us liberal atheists ........

As for me, the word 'manifesto' brings to mind visions of a stern authoritarianism that is kind of scary and quite off-putting, especially in the context of religion. From here on out, I'll assume that the evangelicals and the fundamentalists are really just peas in a pod and without one iota of difference betwixt the two - and all based on my personal dislike of one word, and what it seems to mean.

I know, it doesn't seem fair, but the power of a single word has me under it's sway and I can do nothing but follow my emotional instincts.

Now don't rile me up - don't say...Manifesto, ok??

Merry Anonymous

The book that I was referring to is "The Crack in the Cosmic Egg", by Joseph Chilton Pearce. I must have read it 30 years ago, so I do not remember much about it and could not recommend it, but I did get the concept of metanoia, sudden restructuring of thought, from this book, which I have always found intriging and helpful.

I have since learned that this word, was translated from Greek Biblical texts into English as the word "to be repentent," which seems to be a similar, but slightly different meaning.

I would like to repost my last essay from the previous thread, when the time is right; it doesn't seem quite appropriate yet.

"This manifesto offers yet another example of religious believers, who are already privileged in American public life, pretending that they are really a threatened group."

Sounds like you forgot to read much of the manifesto, which is a call to Evangelicals to repent of our own failings. The Evangelicals involved in this manifesto are less concerned with what other people think of us than with what God thinks of us, and doing what He wants us to do without becoming entrapped by political processes is an important step. The manifesto calls on Evangelicals to admit that we haven't been doing that.

Re: the whole inspiration/inerrancy of Scripture, you also apparently missed the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, which is a thoroughly Evangelical document. This 30-year-old document is seen by many Evangelicals (including the Evangelical Theological Society) as a statement of Evangelical belief concerning the nature of Scripture.

Lisa wrote: "Every atheist I've ever encountered takes every opportunity to forcefully and stridently proselytize even when it is completely inappropriate, to mock and deride anyone who disagrees be they religious or not."

How many atheists would that be, Lisa? Is it really a large enough number to be a valid sample size?

Also, please consider the possibility that you know or have encountered perfectly nice atheists who chose not to divulge that information to you. Many of my co-workers have no idea that I'm an atheist nor do I know their particular beliefs or lack thereof.

Lisa wrote: "Every atheist I've ever encountered takes every opportunity to forcefully and stridently proselytize even when it is completely inappropriate, to mock and deride anyone who disagrees be they religious or not."

How many atheists would that be, Lisa? Is it really a large enough number to be a valid sample size?

Also, please consider the possibility that you know or have encountered perfectly nice atheists who chose not to divulge that information to you. Many of my co-workers have no idea that I'm an atheist nor do I know their particular beliefs or lack thereof.

DILTD:

This is in reply to your post on the previous thread.

Thank you so much for your comments. The book you mention sounds very interesting. Can you give me the title?

Basically, what I am trying to say you have said.

As for the Bible, what I'm saying is that there is, as you know, biblical scholarship. It involves, arcaheology, text studies, mythology, linguistics, etc. It has raised many questions about the Christian Bible (OT/NT). However, the "scentific" study of the Bible is contentious. It has also left questions unanswered. Yet, people with various agendas grab at what's handy to make premature cases.

Another point is that "science" does not proceed in a vaccuum. What gets funding, i.e., atomic weapons, what does not, is often not in control of scientists. The ability to replicate findings is often hampered, and all too often the "scientific" community accepts them prematurely for various reasons. Etc. I am not against science, just to its deification and the notion that it is purely cognitive in nature.

As we have both noted, scientists, mathematicians, Nobelists think otherwise.

I enjoy reading your posts as well. This last one, the parts on intuition, I would like all my fellow atheists to read. Perhaps, you will paste it on this thread.

Yours,
M. Anonymous

Lisa E - Please consider that the atheists you've encountered don't represent all the atheists of the world, any more than a group of angry, rude, Christians would represent all the Christians of the world.

I bet you've encountered at least a few nasty Christians, or at least a few Christians in a nasty mood. I have - some right here on this blog.

Also, could you explain what you mean by "I'm just trying to relate to these people on their level"

Given the context, I think it might mean that because of your negative experiences with atheists, you think it's permissible or even appropriate to "mock and deride" all atheists - but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt until I hear back from you.

Well, I can't use any characterizations for my own experience:

My wife's family are a bunch of atheists: school teachers, nurses, optometrists, physicians, and lawyers, with a judge thrown in there too. The patriarch of the family was an atheist who was a Texas Supreme Court justice and the first chancellor of the University of Texas, the late honorable Judge Hart. All seem to me to be happy, productive citizens who contribute in wholesome, meaningful ways to society.

My side of the family are staunchly church going, Jesus-campers who are ready to rapture, with the exception of my cousin who is more interested in horoscopes than in the Bible. Generally, my side were raised and lived within about a 5 mile radius their whole lives, and have significant issues with bigotry and racism, seen to them as a virtue.

I don't have any trouble not seeing my family "define" believers. Why would you have a different view of my wife's family?

Lisa E,

I get the same thing from Christians all the time: rude, in my face claims that I'm eternally damned for not believing their brand of religion, that I can’t be moral without some imaginary skygod threatening me, and have no place in my own country. Most of us non-believers are neither angry nor rude unless attacked. I, frankly don’t care what you or anyone else’s religious belief is. The fact I think that revealed religion is silly superstition doesn’t mean that I go around on the street shouting I think that, unlike the Evangelical nut cases that plague the campus I work at. The fact that you make think something is good news doesn’t mean I do, and I don’t want to hear it. Evangelizing is both annoying and insulting to the recipient, since it assumes that the hearer’s beliefs are inferior to the evangelizer’s.

And Hitler was a non-practicing Catholic. There have been all too many who have murdered in the name of God over the years. Being a believer just changes the excuses for these crimes. The Communist leaders you mention treated Communism like a religion as well, with all the non-critical certainty that the works of Marx were absolutely and uncontrovertibly true, giving them the moral certainty that they committed their for a just cause. I find them just as morally reprehensible as the Crusaders and Jihadists who massacred the unbelievers and heretics over the centuries in the name of a god who as far as we really know, does not exist.

Lisa,

You are preaching prejudice on a very personal level. Please note that I was a non-believer for over three decades and was never rude to anyone about it. I never spoke of it unless asked, and was polite unless told I was an idiot for not believing. Actually, my usual response to such people was, "I used to be an agnostic, but now I'm not sure....". The expressions on their faces had to be seen to be believed.

By the way, do all atheists really look the same to you?

Arminius, a believer

Steven,

I'm just trying to relate to these people on their level.

Thanks,

Lis

I don't know Lisa but it looks like you started it with your comment about how dismal atheists are.

That's a pretty engaging comment, isn't it?

I believe I'm speaking truthfully when I say that when people think of atheists, they picture someone permanently angry, red in the face with their brows knit stabbing some hapless "religionist" in the chest with his index finger yelling at him about how many people Christianity has killed. As though the worst killers in history weren't atheists - Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler, Mao and that nutjob in NK whose entire country seems to be a sort of concentration camp....

Every atheist I've ever encountered takes every opportunity to forcefully and stridently proselytize even when it is completely inappropriate, to mock and deride anyone who disagrees be they religious or not. In short, they seem personally miserable and determined to be the black cloud of gloom at any social or work-related gathering.

Instead of denouncing me and whatever you assume my religion to be, you'd do well to take my words seriously and understand that how you are perceived by the world out there makes a huge difference in how well whatever message you want to push is received by others.

Perhaps it shouldn't be the case that you have to make the message palatable, feeling as you do that science alone should settle it, but that just isn't reality. There really is some value in cultivating a kind and gracious posture toward the people you are seeking to convince. Most people don't enjoy being browbeaten and talked down to and it creates barriers to whatever it is that you want to convey. Think about it.

Hugh sez:

"American Evangelicals must engage the public square so that Christian truth claims are taken seriously."

Why? There's not a shred of truth to them as far as I can see, and I've been looking at them for decades. Are you demanding that I must believe that demonstrated fantasies, myths and lies are truths?

Now, if you're saying that Xian truth claims have a place in a serious debate about what is true and what is false, then, let's have at it. As long as we can agree on the ground rules for what, exactly, constitutes "truth" and what constitutes opinion and conjecture, then I'm all for it.

Hugh: the question is not whether religion is necessarily divorced from truth, but whether religious claims should be regarded skeptically by the public square, since not EVERYBODY can be completely right. I'd prefer the public square stick with truth finitely inferred from evidence, rather than divinely revealed. Otherwise, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is as valid a Truth as any.

Mr Mark,

I think your reply was borderline rude. This is because your sarcasm was right up there with the Richter reading of the recent earthquake in China. At any rate, you made me chuckle.

Arminius

By railing against religion in the public square, Ms. Jacoby implies that religion is necessarily divorced from truth. (The alternative is that she thinks truth has no place in the public square, but this seems unlikely.)

A civil public square considers ideas (religious or otherwise) primarily according to truth; by that reckoning, what we have in America is hardly civil. It is a public square that treats religion as either a tool to be used, or else something akin to flatulence: unpleasant but dismissible.

The Evangelical Manifesto, for all of its flaws, makes at least this much very clear: American Evangelicals must engage the public square so that Christian truth claims are taken seriously, not as utilitarian or inconsequential baggage that is inconveniently attached to their votes and checkbooks.

Lisa E.says::

"I've always said it and I will say it again. The defining characteristics of atheists have always been and will probably always be rudeness, sarcasm, bitterness and anger. It really doesn't make atheism very attractive."

Why would anybody seek to make atheism "attractive?" I don't understand that comment.

Oh, wait...now I get it. You're a religionist. You're quite used to having things "made attractive" so you'll buy into them. For instance:

* Eternal damnation. Not very attractive. Salvation from eternal damnation. VERY attractive.

* World is a cold impersonal place. Unattractive. Invisible Jesus loves you! Attractive.

* Religions are myth-based. Unattractive. MY religion is fact-based. Attractive.

Perhaps atheists should find a way to make non-belief attractive. Maybe scientists could make science attractive as well!

* Devastating earthquake. Unattractive. It didn't affect me. Attractive.

BTW - I hope I met your expectations on the sarcasm & rudeness meters.

Ryan Haber:

"Ms. Jacoby, things are worse in the non-coercive democracies of Canada and Europe, where people are JAILED for SPEAKING against abortion or the homosexualist movement,.... "

Excuse me, but when were you in Europe the last time and exactly where in Europe are you JAILED for SPEAKING?????

Mary Cunningham already enlightened you about Great Britain and France. I'll take Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy.

But first I want to know were that great pearl of wisdom of yours came from...

Yes, she mentioned China as the (one) example of a country that practices "coercive secularism", although I would say Cuba and No. Korea also figure.

Ryan objected and said many EU countries did so as well. That is not strictly true, see my post.

Susan writes:
"Predictably, this document calls for more rather than less religion in the public square. "We are committed to a civil public square," the authors state, 'a vision of public life in which citizens of all faiths are free to enter and engage the public square on the basis of their faith, but within a framework of what is agreed to be just and free for other faiths as well.' "

As usual in this vision, we non-religious types are to have no place in public discourse because an atheist or agnostic has nothing to contribute, presumably because we are benighted, damned vermin who are a threat to the natural order of things.

Ryan,
You might want to actually read and comment on the article. I don’t see China mentioned in it once.

Just a thought.

Test, the blog owner does not like my posts....

Lisa E, you said:

"The defining characteristics of atheists have always been and will probably always be rudeness, sarcasm, bitterness and anger."

Well, that sounds rather bitter and angry to me. I assume you are talking about Ms Jacoby. She can, by her own admission, be quite sarcastic. But rude, bitter, or angry? I do not see that in her. She is usually quite blunt, but most of us here have no problem with that.

Most of the non-believers here, such as Mr Mark, Chris, and E Favorite, while also blunt, sometimes sarcastic, and occasionally irritating, are never rude or angry.

Arminius, a Christian

Lisa E said:

"I've always said it and I will say it again. The defining characteristics of atheists have always been and will probably always be rudeness, sarcasm, bitterness and anger."

But you are describing the person, Ryan Haber, who posted just before you, and isn't Ryan Haber a Catholic?

I do not think being a Christian makes a person superior to other people, and I do not think that is what Jesus taught, but alot of Christians do think they are better than other people, and they do not love their neighbors unless they are Christians, and even then, it is often grudgingly.

This post actually has nothing to do with atheism or whether there is a God or not; it is just a quizzical reply to Lisa E's very strange opinion.

This is a cheap shot, but if the Bible is "God's Word written, fully trustworthy as our final guide to faith and practice," what do they need an Evangelecal Manefesto for?

I've only read 10 pages of the total 20 pages and so far I have no complaints. Thanks for the people who are behind that manifesto.

Jacoby is a confused person. She should read it again for her to make a better judgment.

www.evangelicalmanifesto.com/docs/Evangelical_Manifesto.pdf

Lisa E Says: "The defining characteristics of atheists have always been and will probably always be rudeness, sarcasm, bitterness and anger. It really doesn't make atheism very attractive."

Lisa, I'd be interested to know, what do you think are the defining characteristics of Christians? And how do they make Christianity attractive?

Also, if you have the time, how did you determine the defining characteristics of those groups?

Thanks

The religious right of the 1980s was an outgrowth of 50-60s segregationism. Now they're trying to distract attention from their Armaggendon-based beliefs about the Middle East by focusing on domestic social justice.

A lot of their followers have been decimated by Republican economic policies that have eliminated good jobs for the non-college educated, and they've come full circle and are trying to make political alliance with African-Americans through shared religious beliefs.

That's what secularists should really fear.

Ryan Haber stated: "Try teaching in public university, where academic freedom is the rule of the day, that underlying the predictable and orderly laws of the universe there MIGHT be an Orderer or a Lawgiver, and you will see coercion lickety-split, Ms. Jacoby."

The concept of an "Orderer" or "Lawgiver", which is code for your god, *is* discussed in classes where it is appropriate; philosophy. It is not discussed as science because there's no scientific basis for that theory.

Also "For religious reasons, even in the US, try education your own children as you see fit in your own home, or even holding them out of a "values-free" sexual education curriculum whose values are contrary to your own."

Again, reproduction is taught in a scientific context which necessarily does not include religious or moral objections to sex.

As much as you might like it, religious beliefs do not belong in science classes.

England, Scotland and Wales: Young schoolgirls are permitted to wear the Muslim headscarf (hijab) in school. Schoolgirls are similarly permitted to wear a cross or a crucifix, but only under their school uniform. Other jewellery is forbidden.

France: Schoolchildren are forbidden to wear any religious clothing or jewellery altogether. This applies to yarmulkes, crosses and hijabs equally.

I know the above for facts. I am not certain about policy on religious clothing in other countries, except to say I am certain that it differs from place to place.

PS--A secularist, Jew, Muslim or Hindu might ascend to be Prime Minister in England but Roman Catholic as PM is expressly forbidden.

I've always said it and I will say it again. The defining characteristics of atheists have always been and will probably always be rudeness, sarcasm, bitterness and anger. It really doesn't make atheism very attractive.

Ms. Jacoby,

You will be well advised to realize that China is NOT the only officially secular society. Most western countries are officially secular. Aren't you secularists always warning of a conspiracy to take over by religionists? What would we be taking over if we are already in charge.

Moreover, these other secular societies are very much coercive. For religious reasons, even in the US, try education your own children as you see fit in your own home, or even holding them out of a "values-free" sexual education curriculum whose values are contrary to your own. You will see coercion like you probably cannot imagine. Try teaching in public university, where academic freedom is the rule of the day, that underlying the predictable and orderly laws of the universe there MIGHT be an Orderer or a Lawgiver, and you will see coercion lickety-split, Ms. Jacoby. Try refraining for whatever reasons from any one of the numerous innoculations, including those that pertain only to the sexually promiscuous, or to chicken-pox, and you will find out the meaning of coercion. CHICKEN-POX! We had PARTIES to contract chicken-pox when I was a little boy, and now, for profit's sake, we are being FORCED to inject our children with more gunk than ever.

Oh, sure. It's not technically required. But then your children cannot go to school, nor enter day-care. Which means more regulations and a single-income in an economy engineered to require two.

Ms. Jacoby, things are worse in the non-coercive democracies of Canada and Europe, where people are JAILED for SPEAKING against abortion or the homosexualist movement, where children are forbidden to enter school wearing a 1 inch crucifix on their neck, or a headscarf.

China is the only coercive secular state. Even if that were factually accurate, you say it as if the 1 BILLION people living there didn't have a right to plan the size of their own family according to their own lights and needs; as if they hadn't a right to keep their ancestral land against the encroachments of big businesses; as if they hadn't a right to be secure against eavesdropping and surveillence by their government.

RIGHT. Gimme a break, Ms. Jacoby.

Thanks for another great column.

Ah, some random casual observations on the essay.

Jacoby : "The only officially secularist society that restricts religious liberty is China, and I suspect that China's attitude toward Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism owes much more to nationalism and imperialism than to secularism."

The irony is, when Tibet was "annexed" by China against the former's will, one of the reasons given by China is Tibet's "historical and cultural linkages" to China, including exporting Buddhism to China.

China did not annex what was formerly known as Outer Mongolia in spite of "historical and cultural linkages" of Mongolia and the Mongols ruling China for almost three centuries right up until the last emperor in the early years of the last century.

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"Coercive secularism". That's a new one for me. Does the state forcing or banning people not to wear anything deem to be related religions in schools and the workplace, even under threat of of expulsion, as happens in some European countries including France, can be defined as "coercive secularism"?

Or is it really "protective secularism" against the possibility of such religious symbols worn by people being an impetus for and spreading like a virus into full-fledged and unfettered forms of religious expression in the public square?

Surely not a "two-tiered" approach on "coercive religion" and" coercive secularism".

**************************************************

As for members of religious majorities pretending to be the "threatened group", inexcusable after all the threats, abuses and deprivation of rights they made against religious and non-religious minorities.

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And an Evangelical Manifesto? Sounds like the manisfesto another sort of fundamentalist came out with before - The Communist Manifesto. Looks like the evangelicals are in search of an "identity" and now defining one. God help any evangelical who deviates from the defined "Our Identity" as in the Evangelical Manifesto.

And as "fighters" for social justice as well as opponents of abortion and gay rights being an objective of the Evangelical Manisfesto? Does it contain strategies and tactics? These evangelical-fundamentalists may give ideas to some of their Muslim counterparts to come up with an "Islamist Manifesto".

Does sound more like something the Monty Python gang would come out with instead of really happening. I should read the full text of that Evangelical Manifesto to know what they are really manifesting about.

Thank you and best regards
"J"