The rough patches in life.

Pulling at the threads - Beliefnet:

"Most of my University educated friends don't reach for history books or religious works to help them through their rough patches. They are more likely to turn to modern philosophical fiction or other modern mythology in cinema, dance, music, or whatever their dominant genre is to gain the strength to solve their problems.

Some use eclectic combinations that may include ancient mythology, (it won't last if it doesn't contain some truth) in my case religious music, not for the God data but for the problem solving data that it contains. But a reliance on a single source God, the Bible, or even a personal conversation with God, generally results in bad solutions to the problem.

Underlying it all is the collected wisdom of the social group chosen by the individual which points them in the most useful direction. For the religious this may well be God or the Bible, but mono-cultural data is normally useful only within that culture."

Atheists and Jesus

Atheists and Jesus - Beliefnet:

"You need to strip the God from Jesus the man, and the stage magic that was his stock in trade, then put the rest of what he said in the context of his time. A good place to start would be the Jefferson Bible in which Jefferson, an atheist, well, Deist politically, literally cut up the Synoptics to find out what Jesus was all about.

While you are at it forget about prooftexing it is no more becoming for an atheist than for a fundie.

As a starter take Matthew 22: 37 ff.

...Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

There is a good reason that much of modern Christianity, the 'Progressive Christians' have for the most part reduced the entire law and the prophets, that is the whole Bible, to this teaching of Jesus. An atheist can learn simply by studying this and its context.

True it refers to God but look at the God it refers to: Thy God. Not the God of Moses or Abraham, or the prophets, or the priests. Thy God, God which speaks directly to the individual. With this three letter word 'Thy' he is basically telling the whole religious establishment to go to Hell in their own way.

'Love thy neighbor.' He goes on to identify the neighbor as a Samaritan, in our terms a Muslim terrorist. He had recently left a Samaritan village where he was refused hospitality, one of the most grievous affronts in that desert society. And now a Samaritan is his neighbor?

'As thyself.' In those days as now religion made a good living selling self-hate. Jesus is clearly stating that all humans are worthy of self-respect. You can't get much more humanist than that. Theistic humanist? Of course theism was the language of the time."

God's All-loving Nature. Not

God - Tales of Mere Existence - Beliefnet:

"As someone who has put serious effort into understanding God I have come to a quite different conclusion. I find nothing at all of God's all-loving nature and therefore have no wish to conform to His mysogynic and hateful teachings. I am assuming you are talking about the Abrahamic God who not only has one but is one. I will admit that Jesus tried valiantly for his era to counter some of this hate, but was immediately trumped by Paul who discovered that self-hate sells better than self love. Perhaps you are one of those fighting a rearguard action to return Christianity to Jesus. But I don't see how that is possible by including God in the picture.

Such effort is not easy, but I can see no other conclusion but to reject God in all known forms. By the way Jesus is excepted from this rejection as he was in no way a God."

Atheists and Jesus - Discuss Atheism - Beliefnet Community

Atheists and Jesus - Beliefnet:

"It is perhaps useful to understand the background and biases of the creator of the entity, but you need to know nothing about Paul to understand that the entity of Jesus Christ is the savior of all who do bad things. You need to know nothing about John to understand that the God he was creating based loosely on the contemporary myth of Jesus of Nazareth was bringing Godhood to humanity. You need to know nothing about Mary Magdalene to understand the message of the itinerant preacher/entertainer she was telling about. You don't even need to know if Jesus was a real person. Her creation, even if a roman à clef was extremely influential, misused, abused, or studied."

Atheists and Jesus - Discuss Atheism - Beliefnet Community

Atheists and Jesus - Beliefnet:

"Kermit the Frog, Jubal Hartshaw, Jesus, and God are well defined, consistently portrayed (at least locally in the case of God) constructed entities that are used for the purpose of entertainment and perhaps teaching. While it is useful to understand the background of the the creator of the entity it is not necessary at all to appreciate the message of the entity.

It is quite reasonable to discuss the social and moral views of the entity as depicted in the realization of that entity, without knowing anything at all about the creator. It is useful to suspend disbelief in the reality of the character to appreciate the entertainment/message but not necessary. One can appreciate the message of It isn't Easy Being Green even if one is well aware of the fact that what is being referred to is a green sock puppet. Of course the target audience is not adult curmudgeons who cannot get past the reality of a sock puppet, but small children for whom suspension of disbelief is as natural as breathing.

As an aside one of the reasons for the success of Sesame Street was that much of the entertainment/message was directed at the parents who were being lulled into not believing the sock puppets were real. It is no easier being a minority parent than it is to be a green sock puppet."

US Politics and the Third World

As you know I was active in the Obama and health care campaigns. It turned out he was just another Chicago politician. He had the votes for real health care reform, real stimulus, and real financial reform. He blew all three. I won't say he was listening to the big money he claims he didn't take, but you can draw your own conclusions. He sure is listening now.

I am beginning to think that the federal government is largely irrelevant anymore. They will continue to drive the red states into third world status, and the university enclaves will make their own little worlds. The beach states in the West, New England and the Middle Atlantic and a few enclaves in the rest of the country will, in effect ignore the rest of the country and Washington, and build their own society.

Watch California. We beat the money. Whatever you think of Gov Moonbeam he was the best Governor in the past 50 or so years. We may even get our own health Care system. The rudiments are in place now. It will be interesting. Even Orange County left the tea party. It was either that or join the third world.

Blag Hag: Ripping MS -ogyny

Blag Hag: Does the media really care where the atheist women are?
:
The main article is an incredibly good response to a MS(ogyny) article on female atheists. Don't bother with the MS article.

"jgbel in reply to J'Carlin
So, when you say 'theists,' you of course mean only male theists, right? Which makes up what percentage of the population, and excuses what?

J'Carlin in reply to jgbel
Not really, look at any religious site and see the number of females that buy into the 'be submissive' role. I don't have demographic data, I don't think Pew Research has done a survey on submissive females in the churches.

It excuses nothing. Bigotry and sexism has no excuse. But it is all too common among both genders in religious circles. Certainly more among the men, and men are more blatant and proud of their misogyny."

Atheists and Jesus

Atheists and Jesus - Beliefnet :

"I think it is important to recognize in any discussion of Jesus by atheists that we are dealing with a very sketchy story heavily edited to conform with the theistic tenor of the times. Even emperors were promoted as gods.

What I get from the story is a humanistic and anti-religious message. Radical for its time and place. Certainly God is there but it is a personal not a male religious God. I find a strong feminine influence on the message at least as unpolluted by John and Paul who were usurpers not apostles of his message.

Admittedly a lot of soup from one oyster, but when the oyster is strongly and uniquely flavored, it may not be a useless soup. Even for an atheist. I and many Christians frequently use Jesus as a powerful weapon against Christian hate. It is hard to rationalize a hate mongering preacher/pastor in the face of 'love thy neighbor.' In particular when the neighbor explicitly referred to was a member of a hated group that had just caused Jesus to 'shake the dust off his sandals' for one of the most serious breaches imaginable of the social contract of the time. Even the 'love thyself' can be a powerful weapon as the control mechanism of the preacher/pastor of hate is self-hate. 'I confess I am a miserable sinner who can only be saved from Hell by Christ' This of course is pure Paul, and has nothing at all to do with Jesus."

Fighting Two Fronts - Discuss Atheism - Beliefnet Community

Fighting Two Fronts - Beliefnet From a generally useless thread:

"For those for whom God is the awe-ful, controlling big daddy (always male) in the sky, they must fight every loss of power. If God looses control over creation, and in particular creation of man (human males) in His image, He loses control over everything: Morality, the prieshood, women and even men.

However, this is not by any stretch all theists. Frequently atheists spend entirely too much energy and ammunition (torches for straw men) on this God which you note correctly is increasingly irrelevant.

In general God is a centering/focusing point or entity which is a community building aid for the moral and social cohesion for a functioning society. I would suggest that a majority of theists in Europe and the 'Blue' USA are using God in a beneficial way for the larger society including atheists, and atheists should be careful in choosing the enemy. A blanket condemnation of all theists or even all Christians, may be alienating some powerful allies in the fight against fundamentalism. Many of the scientists eliminating the gaps for the creationist God to hide in are Christians, and quite devout in their God beliefs. It is just that the Male Creator is not the God they focus on. It is important to be aware of the difference. I find 'He' is the touchstone. Anyone referring to God as He can be presumed guilty. Those that are aware of the gender issues are our friends."

I find it very encouraging that many devout Christians are focusing on the direct connection with God advocated by Jesus. "Worship the Lord thy God with all thy heart...." in effect eliminating that little vuvuzela in the fancy dress in the overdecorated balcony unless hesh looses the hubris of speaking as God but is speaking for God as hesh understands God in herm society.

Lust, Commitment, and Morality

Question about Actions and Consequence - Beliefnet :

"The difficulty here is that unfortunately bullying is one of the social contract enforcement mechanisms. This does not excuse it, but it is up to the people who are establishing the social contract to insure that bigotry is not a part of it. I think in Tyler's [Clementi] case the bullying was independent of the nuanced definition of sexual immorality I was discussing. It was pure homophobic bigotry. The nature of the relationship other than the homosexuality was immaterial.

I think in Paul's moral teaching he was trying, clumsily, to differentiate between lust, that is sex for gratification only with sex in a committed relationship (marriage.) As an amusing aside it would be interesting to question Paul about the morality of the relationship between the Centurian and his pais.

I would find it a major advance in social morality if people did look down on others who have lustful sex, particularly heterosexual lustful sex, which I hope was clearly the point of my post. A few of the homosexuals I knew well enough in the NYC arts community to know their relationship status were in committed relationships and did in fact 'look down' on the gay bar scene.

'Tis a dream of course. Until the churches and other 'tight' communities are inclusive enough to provide relationship incubation for all, the bar scene will be well patronized by all gender preferences, lust is too powerful to be thwarted by Paul or any mortal."

I have often wondered if choirs would have any males at all if they weren't relationship incubators for gays. Or dance groups. I don't know about other arts groups, but those groups seem to have more than their demographic share of gays.

Morals without God?

Morals without God? - Beliefnet:

"How could [morality not follow current fashion.} Morality is the genetic propensity of an intelligent social animal to comply with the mores of the society of which hesh is a part. It actually does not follow current fashion, but follows the dictates of the individual's chosen society. It may be a church, it may be a gang, it may be an intelligently selected community of, for example, university educated people, or an industry or charitable consortium, etc. All are influenced by the integrated mores of the larger society, currently national, but regional differences are emerging at least in the USA."

Atheists and Jesus

Atheists and Jesus - Beliefnet :

"Atheists arguing about the existence of Jesus or the 'truth' in the Gospels among themselves are being willfully blind to the importance and humanistic message of the preacher who probably was called Jesus or Yeshua depending on the language assumption.

The story if you will or oral history which was probably the case in that illiterate culture was probably originated by a companion of Jesus in his travels, my guess is Mary Magdalene. She probably helped him hone his message, I see a lot of anti-misogyny in it, at least in the context of the time. No man thought up the tale of the unstoned whore.

I am of course speaking of the Synoptic Gospels, by the time John and Paul came around to create a God the story was destroyed beyond recognition. I think there is a lot to be learned by atheists from the Synoptics, I generally use Jefferson's extract. Hey, if a famous atheist like Jefferson can find value in the Bible who am I to argue.

Disclaimer: I owe much of my interpretation of the Gospels to Heinlein and his allegory of Jesus in Michael Smith and Gillian Bordman in Stranger in a Strange Land. The thinking is of course mine."

The Intellectual Poverty of Rationalism

Antitheism? - Beliefnet:

"If a rationalist is unable to suspend disbelief as claimed to enjoy a learning experience or even a rollicking good time at a movie, reading a worth while fiction, listening to an emotional piece of music, or attending a religious service, but must analyze every nuance for compliance with their understanding of reality, usually material, is missing a major portion of what I experience as being an intelligent human.

The wonder and joy of a rainbow does not need be parsed into light ray patterns and ignored as merely physics. Although doing so after enjoying the wonder of the moment does not diminish and may increase the wonder and joy. Understanding that a rainbow is created by and uniquely for oneself is 'not merely physics' the interaction of the non-rational portion of the mind is essential.

I suspend disbelief in God each time I sing a Mass or a prayer in order to appreciate the non-rational wonder and beauty of a transcendant being that watches over me even after I die. Sure when it is over, all that remains is the wonder and beauty, and I might add the appreciation of the faith of believers, although I do not participate in it. I finally came to grips with the finality of death by understand the power of the 'Et Expecto' by believing it for a while."

Conundrums

There Is No God - Beliefnet:

"There is no materialist conundrum. WE are not the ones having a problem with a god - we simply don't accept that one exists. THEISTS are the ones with the conundrum - how to convince (i.e., proselytize) others of the existence of something for which they have no inductive or deductive evidence?

They've figured it out to an extent - brainwash children before the age of reason with the creation mythology nonsense, and hope it sticks out of habit, or approach people who are emotionally fragile or medically fragile and are looking for any comfort, and hope it works with them over the long term.

But they are unable to deal with rational adults who don't need their particular night light, and it totally frightens them. As well it should. Because if rational, thinking people don't need their myth after exploring it in depth, maybe their myth isn't real at all, and maybe the theists should rethink things."

Thanks TolerantSis

Theodicy

There Is No God - Beliefnet:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

~Epicurus

Thanks Kwinters for this

Morality as Face Group

Please Critique My Idea Of God - Beliefnet:

"Managing my life for the good of my chosen society is more basic than a call by God on my conscience. Humans as highly intelligent and extremely social animals are genetically programmed to learn all they can about the customs and mores of their tribe or social group as defined prehistorically by those whose faces they encountered on a daily basis. There could be no thought of violating these customs and mores, as doing so would cause banishment and a solo human was a dead human. This is the basis of conscience, not some big daddy in the sky. As tribes got larger and the face groups dispersed, myth and lore took the place of customs and mores, and the shamans in charge of maintaining the myth and lore found that an imaginary superface as part of every group, inevitably in the image of the group was very useful to enforce the precepts of the myth and lore. Hence the evolution of your First Cause, traditionally referred to as God. As shamans and God became more powerful and manipulative many of the conscience functions and exceptions to them became the province of God. Do what God tells you to do began to override the do what is right of the conscience. Especially when God got to be Maitre d'Hotel of the afterlife, and doing what God tells you to do became the cumshaw.

The reason I feel the need to take control of my life is twofold. The first is as you note the conscience but in the original sense of internalized customs and mores of the face group. The world is too big to be a face group these days but if we choose carefully there are a group of people whose customs and mores we can internalize. That group will look a lot like our family and close friends even when extended to people we probably will never meet. My group consists of intelligent, well educated, self actualizing people who are capable of and interested in making changes to the relevant society of intelligent, well educated, self actualizing people. Most of us have found God and gods of any form limiting and dysfunctional to our society.

One of the results is the second reason for ignoring God, that is that the only life that counts is the one that begins with birth and ends with death. It is the only one we can be sure of, and Pascal's wager fails on the plethora of possible God bets each with different rules for living. So we live as if the only important contribution we can make is by living according to the best interests of our chosen society. The agnostics among us suggest that if God is the Maitre d' in the afterlife that is all Hesh would care about anyway."

The Christian's Problem

Richard Dawkins Thread v2.0 - Beliefnet:

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. --Edmund Burke

As long as people apologize for the Pope, and moderate Christians apologize for Paul, simply because God appointed them, Dawkins has a valid point that moderates enable fanaticism. If when the average citizen hears 'Christian' the first thing that pops into mind is Fred Phelps, or people protesting mosques, Christians have a problem.

If on a religious site a statement of the form 'Christians are assholes of a particular kind' is censored, because only some Christians are assholes of that kind. Christians have a problem: Christians need to deal with assholes of that kind. Judging people by the labels they accept, is a natural and necessary evolutionary adaptation of humans. Labels cause wars. It is best that the label one accepts is kept clean."

Paul's sins

Sex and spirituality. - Beliefnet:

"I do blame Paul. He needed a bunch of sins that people could adopt to consider themselves sinners so that they would need his savior. In Romans 1 he really covers the waterfront, and in Corinthians he picks up normal sex as a sin. You say you are not a sinner? Do you have sex of any kind? Gotcha! The Romans sins are easier to deny, or point at others as examples, but 'God knows' so all need salvation. This was the genius of Paul. Call it perverted genius if you will, but every Christian can find a sin for hermself in Paul. And for everybody else so hesh doesn't feel lonely."

Gender Definitions.

Sex and spirituality. - Beliefnet:

"In defining what constitutes gender I suspect I am an apostate to the traditional males, although thoroughly and happily heterosexual. I am much more interested in relationships than sex, and partnerships rather than dominance. When I had growing children I did more than my share of parenting since my partner had the more demanding career and I had no problem with playing the male MBA card when necessary to change jobs and careers to accommodate parenting.

Probably because I make a point of noticing them, I see more males adopting this relationship model rather than the traditional if the sex is good it is good model. If this is effeminate so be it. I don't think so, I think it is simply not being a prick. That is one who is driven by testosterone to spread genes as far and wide as possible. I see the testosterone driven model waning at least among the educated elite, but perhaps that is wishful thinking and I am only noticing the minority that isn't growing at all. I hope not, as I think this is the only way a modern society can survive. Relegating half the society's brain power to the bedroom is not going to work."

Common Religious Morality

The Bright Line... - Beliefnet Community:

"There is no common religious conclusion on morality. Each ignorant man, noting the benefit of having a God at his back invented one, and the morals to go with it. That includes your Abrahamic preachers like Moses and Paul. Religious morality is not common or I should say common only in the sense of its trashiness, but each iteration of God has a different despicable moral standard that is only good for the tribe of the shaman, if that. Normally it is good only for the shaman, priest, preacher, pastor, minister, or whatever they choose to call themselves. They take a collection, toss it into the air for God to take his share, and they keep all that falls on the floor. This was called morality by that little vuvuzela in the fancy dress in the overdecorated balcony long before there were vuvuzelas, tinhorns, or shofars to blow at the marks in the pews."

World-Views

Why do they believe? - Discuss Atheism - Beliefnet Community:

"What is a world-view if not the way we operate in and react to reality? Certainly all world-views are dependent on previous experiences with reality. Some are more consistent with reality than others. Those conditioned by myths that reality can be affected by magic will tend to view reality as magical. Those conditioned to see reality as affected only by real actions will tend to experiment with real actions to see how they will affect reality. They adopt a world view based on real actions that affect reality in ways that they have learned to be beneficial. Those with a magical world view tend to wish for changes rather than figuring out how to make changes happen. In the most extreme cases of magical world-views people simply bumble through life wishing that in the end all will be nice. This is abetted by various shamans, priests, preachers, etc. who sell World them a very nice end that they never have to deliver."

Abstinance

Protest the Pope - Beliefnet:

So ... you think that The Bishop of Rome is WRONG about 'Abstinence' ...
teilhard

"Completely, unequivocally, and disastrously wrong. Abstinence advocacy causes more social dysfunction than any other Christian concept. Abuse of children is only a minor side effect of the doctrine. There is no good reason for saying sex, any and all kinds of consensual sex is wrong. Paul and the Pope want it to be sin so everybody is a sinner. But their need to sell their savior does not justify in any way the doctrine that sex is sin."

Paradise

Life after death? - Beliefnet :

"Then you had better build Paradise here and now while you are alive to enjoy it. Select your friends, and your affective inputs, movies, TV, books, music, carefully, and you may find it. Let others choose for you and you are stuck in the equivalent of a religious dictatorship."

Using the Bible

Romans 1:27 - Beliefnet:

"I use the Bible to try to understand the context of my friends' thinking. I don't really care about what ancient people were thinking, I am concerned about how that thinking affects people today. Accordingly I read the Bible large chunks at a time, usually in several English versions. I have seldom found a 'proof-text' that in context means anything at all like what it is claimed to have meant.

Whether I like the passage or not is quite immaterial. If it is important to a friend it is important to me to see why they find it important, and whether they are ignoring context or not. If they are ignoring context that is an important data point, that will tell me how I want to deal with that person, if at all."

Midwest Cuisine cooking

The Tea House - Beliefnet:

"I grew up in Toledo OH along with Gael Greene food columnist for the New Yorker. She summed up Toledo as a place where Velveeta Cheese is found on the gourmet counter of the supermarket.

I told my Chinese wife about boiled vegetables, and she said 'That would make good soup.' I told her mom threw out the cooking water and she just sighed and said no wonder you like Chinese food."

My mate is also Chinese.

I get "You are not throwing that out are you?" all the time.

My dumb question of the week was" are you really going to eat...???" in reference to a little octopi , still wiggling and slightly pickled, she replied "isn't it cute?" and plopped it in her mouth.

I turned whiter than I already am.
Dar-

Asparagus

The Tea House - Beliefnet:

"One of the veggies I hated most as a small child was asparagus. My dad grew it, we would lovingly harvest it, mom would boil it until it was grey, and I ate it cause I had to. Tonight at dinner I had a Shanghai style stir-fried asparagus with beef. Even late season asparagus was wonderful. Never too old to learn."

On Wicked Hearts

Romans 1:27 - Beliefnet:

"Thank you for asking. I not only deny that the human heart is deceitfully wicked, but I hold anyone teaching that it is must be held responsible for the damage that such teaching inevitably causes. I begin with Paul, and continue through current 'Pastors' that fill their limos with the hatred they run on.

There is a current revival of South Pacific, and one of the key songs is 'You've Got to be Taught' As a child your heart is filled with love for everybody, until mom or some other mentor says 'they are not like us.' From the song: 'You've got to be taught to hate and fear, its got to be drummed in your dear little ear. You've got to be taught to be afraid of people whose eyes are oddly made or people whose skin is a different shade. You've got to be carefully taught. You've got to be taught before it's too late, before you are six or seven or eight.' (from memory, any misquote is mine.)

It doesn't really matter who it is that you are supposed to hate, it comes down to they are not us, be afraid. And from fear comes hate, and all the evil fruits of hate. Sirron has shown us some of the fruits of that hate.

I was fortunate, hate was not a part of my childhood, I didn't even understand the song when I went to South Pacific as a young man. I asked my parents about it, and they didn't think I was old enough to deal with it, and told me to think about it later when I found out about hate. They did things like that frequently, so I put it in the hate file along with other things I wasn't ready for yet. They did not want to contaminate my heart with deceit and wickedness. They knew I would be exposed to deceit and wickedness soon enough and gave me the tools to deal with it but not in my heart, in my head. They expected me to keep my heart unblemished by evil."

The Ice Cream Diet

The Tea House - Beliefnet:

"At one point in my life I was packing on some 'swivel chair spread' keeping up with my teen age sons at the dinner table. One day on the way home I gave in to the Flavor of the Month at Baskin-Robbins, I always was a sucker for caramel. One day led to the next and they renewed the flavor for another month. My then wife asked if I was sick since I was losing weight and just picking at my dinner, I said no, I feel great, and added up two scoops to two scoops and my mothers 'no cookies you will spoil your dinner.' It equaled 4 pounds/week lost.

Since then whenever I am chubbing up I add real ice cream before dinner and fix it. (The butter fat and sugar just destroys any appetite.)"

Tough Times and Atheism

Separating truth from superstition - Beliefnet:

"As for the tough times, even smart, tough, atheists run into them. It is called living long enough to enjoy them. Not while you are in them but later. As Forrest Church says in Love in Death, 'We cannot protect love from death. But by giving away our hearts, we can protect our lives from the death of love.' I find that thought useful as much for living as for dealing with death. To love is to risk hurt. It is always worth it."

Learning from Religions

Separating truth from superstition - Beliefnet:

"Picking and choosing among religious beliefs is not only tolerable it is the only way to learn from religions. All religions have a lot to teach about being alive and having to die. That is why they are all still around. When I go to any religious meeting, or even sing a prayer or Mass, I do my best to understand it from the POV of a believer, and then think about it later to figure out what was worth learning, what needed to be reinterpreted, and what needed to be rejected lock, stock, barrel and dogma."

Atheist Belief Systems?

How many flavors are there? - Beliefnet:

"In a lifetime of living as an atheist, and primarily with atheists, I have yet to find any with belief systems. They may incorporate items from other belief systems into their world view, or as I prefer to call it their paradigm for making it from birth to death and in my case building a legacy in the process. Is the space I am building for others to enjoy when I die a belief in an afterlife? I don't think so. I won't be there to enjoy it.

I do not spend any time on the supernatural, the natural contains enough transcendent wonder for my needs, especially when enhanced by the beauties of well done science at all levels. It is amusing to build fantasies on Universalist afterlife theology (which I am not sure even they believe in) but they are fantasies not a reason to abandon a focus on living."

Atheists, agnostics know more about religion than believers

Atheists, agnostics know more about religion than believers, finds US survey:

"A new survey, which measured Americans' knowledge of religion, has found that atheists and agnostics knew more than followers of most major faiths. According to the survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a majority of Protestants could not identify Martin Luther as the driving force behind the Protestant Reformation.

It also revealed that four in 10 Catholics misunderstood the meaning of their church's central ritual, incorrectly saying that the bread and wine used in Holy Communion are intended to merely symbolize the body and blood of Christ, not actually become them.

It said that atheists and agnostics - those who believe there is no God or who are not sure - were more likely to answer the survey's questions correctly."

Surprise, surprise. If you only know what that little vuvuzela in the fancy dress in the overdecorated balcony tells you you can know it is easy to believe because he won't tell you anything else. Once you start learning about your religion, read your Holy Book without the study guide, maybe look at related religions that your friends believe in and find out more about them the less sense any religion makes. So then you start down the slippery slope of finding a religion that makes any sense at all, end up in woo-woo land and finally pick a church for the social and networking benefits, and/or the music. The one thing the Christian God does better than any other God is inspire composers to comment on the Mass and the prayers. Some of the comments are not too nice, but the music is still great.

Inherent Morality

The Bright Line... - Beliefnet:

it is 'The Point' consider this: before you or I or anyone ( indigenous tribes included), can take any action, we must first pause and consider the rightness or the wrongness of that action... we pre-read/re-read the law/morality affixed upon our conscience.... and we act upon the resolution of such thoughts (hopefully that which is right)... we take our self to court 'first', and then act.. we are so constructed, that like in the above exercise of defining a moral action with non moral components, it is logically and linguistically IMPOSSIBLE
Leight

Perhaps it is, however, it is only theists that are claiming that ANYONE is trying to make moral decisions without a moral framework. What you so consistently and valiantly ignore, time and time again, is that ETHICS and MORALITY are qualities inherent in all people. Those concepts were not invented by Christians, they were not handed down by any god, they are a valuable and necessary component of human survival, brought about by impersonal forces of survival and death. It really is that simple. Just because some religion thousands of years ago (and I'd wager it was one much older than yours) decided to USURP the concepts of morality and PRETEND that morality was only given by a god, that does not make it true in any way.

Morality is the evolutionary tool by which social animals (like humans, but not only humans) survive to provide the next generation. Morality is built upon empathy, and flavoured by an ability to understand consequences of one's actions. Those species that depend on their community to survive, will not survive long have no instinct for protecting and helping others as well as themselves. Thay instinct becomes 'morality' in animals with more brainspace than they really need.
cptspith

Becoming Atheist

The Bright Line... - Beliefnet:

"There are no atheists who believe they are Godlike. That means that no person indoctrinated in the belief that they are made in the image of God can be an atheist. They can only attempt to do the truly impossible for themselves that is erase the Godlikness (sic) from themselves.

A Christian or any other theist can become an atheist but only by coming to realize that they are not made in the image of God and have no wish to be because God as depicted by their faith is petty, insecure, violent, and misanthropic, that is God hates all people. They have no interest in maintaining that image of themselves and must take on the difficult but not impossible task of rejecting their childhood indoctrination. In my experience, those who accept the indoctrination as adults have a much more difficult task of discovering what the God they are supposed to be in the image of is really like. Once they do the rest is easy."

Selfish or Social

Life after death? - Beliefnet:

There's no such thing as a selfless act. When people do good to others they only do this to benefit themselves.
Timothy

"Not only a wrong opinion but scientifically wrong. Humans are highly evolved social animals. Until recently anti-social acts were a death sentence, including acts that benefited the individual only, that is, a selfish act. There is no such thing in a social animal herd as a 'good' that only benefits the adult that performed the act. Maturing animals certainly, they must be selfish as infants to stay alive, but maturing is learning the rules of the herd, pack, or tribe, and violating those rules is banishment at least and a even a lone wolf is a dead wolf.

Even evil acts by adults must be done in the context of a social good, usually but not always blessed by God. Torquemada and Hitler were both protecting their chosen societies, and the benefit was not to self, but to the ideal of the betterment of the local Catholic or Aryan society."

Spiritual but Not Religious

Common ground? Maybe we can all get along after all. - Beliefnet:

"Spirituality is a natural human response to awe and wonder at unusual things that can be used as landmarks. Constellations, Rock formations, etc. Also for unusually beautiful and centering phenomena like rainbows, a beautiful sunrise or sunset, or just the Milky Way on a crystal clear night in a non light polluted area. The shamans and that little vuvuzela in the fancy dress in the overdecorated balcony will try to co-opt this natural response into the service of God, but spirituality came first and God was created later. But since God can be a centering phenomenon as well it is not a surprise that this co-opting is common. Theists are welcome to their God based spirituality, I will take the naturally generated stuff straight."

The Fallacy of the Cipher.

Life after death? - Beliefnet:

"Timothy, 2 + 2 = 4. But 2 + 2 + 0 = 4, too. What you are arguing is what I like to call the fallacy of the cipher (perhaps one day it will make it into the logical fallacies' lists), or is similarly called Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation usually is the correct one, and if you are interested, there are some pretty neat examples from science I can give you.

What you are arguing is yes, when death occurs, all life functions cease, and that yes, the life functions are what animate the body. 2 + 2 = 4. To that point, we agree. But then you argue that some unseen, unmeasurable, unknown substance/entity which you call a 'soul' is responsible for all the life functions doing what they do to animate the body. That's a cipher. (2 + 2 + 0 = 4) You can't demonstrate one, you can't show a disembodied 'soul', you have no evidence whatsoever for your 'soul' except for what you want to believe because you have a lot of trouble getting over the idea that your 'self' ends when your life functions cease.
Tolerant Sis"

The best argument against the existence of a God generated soul I have seen. Thanks TS.

Works well as an argument against God as well.

B flat.

The 'existence' of gods - Beliefnet:

"My answer to lack of faith is to enjoy the symphony of life without the vuvuzela in the fancy dress in the overdecorated balcony droning loudly in B flat. I don't need to E-X-P-E-R-I-E-N-C-E B flat. I hear it wherever there are mindless idiots doing whatever mindless idiots do. There are all too many of them, but fortunately B flat is easy to ignore while you are getting to interesting places where it isn't the only note on the program."

Who Cares?

The 'existence' of gods - Beliefnet :

"'Who cares?' or its many street language equivalents is a 't'riffic' argument against any religious assertion. It is the one argument God can't deal with.

God says do this or don't do this with your penis (God doesn't care about women,) someone says 'Who cares?' and sin and Paul evaporate from the world and salvation is a non issue. But then, who cares?"

The Gospel of Wealth

Op-Ed Columnist - The Gospel of Wealth - NYTimes.com:

"The United States once had a Gospel of Wealth: a code of restraint shaped by everybody from Jonathan Edwards to Benjamin Franklin to Andrew Carnegie. The code was designed to help the nation cope with its own affluence. It eroded, and over the next few years, it will be redefined."

Please note that the Robber Barons of the 19th Century did well by doing good. Building the railroads, the banks, the commercial empires, the utilities etc. Some frittered away their fortunes, others used them to create libraries, universities, and other public assets. But the important thing was the way they made their money. Today's super rich are rebuilding the financial system, the information infrastructure, and the other necessities of modern living.

God or Mammon - Take your pick

Op-Ed Columnist - The Gospel of Wealth - NYTimes.com:

"The tension between good and plenty, God and mammon, became the central tension in American life, propelling ferocious energies and explaining why the U.S. is at once so religious and so materialist. Americans are moral materialists, spiritualists working on matter.

Platt is in the tradition of those who don’t believe these two spheres can be reconciled. The material world is too soul-destroying. “The American dream radically differs from the call of Jesus and the essence of the Gospel,” he argues. The American dream emphasizes self-development and personal growth. Our own abilities are our greatest assets."

These two spheres cannot be reconciled because the American dream requires intelligence and reasoning to achieve the self-development and personal growth. Religion requires conceding self-development to the church, that is, the little vuvuzelas (tinhorns are archaic) in the fancy dresses in the overdecorated balconies like David Platt.

Religion and Evolution

Keeping state out of church? - Beliefnet :

"Religion is one of the ways societies evolve. It is where social paradigms are tested and worked out. As long as they are not accepting public money, except for the tax exemption, a bad idea imo but historically entrenched, they can do anything they want inside the church. Including educating or not educating their children as they please. If they wish to discriminate on any basis they wish inside the church that is no business of society.

I don't even have a problem with political action by churches, although I wish there were a way to tax their political action funds, but religions have the same rights as any other 'person' in our society to create a society that they want. It is up to other 'persons' in the society to insure that dysfunctional religious ideas do not affect the rest of the society. This is how evolution works."

Good and Evil

Epicurus? - Beliefnet:

A personal view of good and evil is "Perhaps an Epicurean POV, or a caricature of a theist's view of atheism. Or both.

It has no basis in reality. Good and evil are determined by the effects of the action on the society of the person. The effect on the yenta. If she shakes her finger it is evil. If she perchance smiles it is good. We all have yentas in our lives. It usually starts with mom and ripples out from there to the yenta on her stoop. Some people replace the yenta with God but God usually devolves into that little vuvuzela in the fancy dress in the overdecorated balcony. If hesh blows the vuvuzela better not do it again. Hesh never smiles."

Christian for Eternity

The Bright Line - Beliefnet:

"We atheists will die and as a result of our living a righteous and moral life according to our chosen society that society will be a little or a lot better because we lived. We get continuous feedback from that society that we are doing the righteous and moral things that improve that society so that when we die the society will be better than when we were born. We have no need to imagine what will happen when we die, we can look back as others will and see how we made our society better. I am using 'we' here not to represent all atheists, just the ones that think as I do about living and death.

I am glad you, as a Christian, believe that God will take care of you when you die. You seem to have done nothing of worth in this life but annoy strangers with your blather about God and the Hell you created for yourself in this life as a rebelling Christian. I hope God will ignore all that and reward your belief with His eternal presence. I doubt it, but hang tight to that belief. It is all you have."

The Mind?

Where Is The Mind? - Beliefnet :

"Lets be honest here. In Christian myth, human minds created God, in order to create and sustain their little universe. Y'know the circle of the earth with the canopy of the heavens and a pile of dirt to turn into a human in the image of the minds that created God."

Good and Evil

Epicurus? - Beliefnet:

"Human social structures originally tribes and later villages and parishes decided definitively what was good and what was evil. Basically what was good was what created trust and cooperation within the tribe and what was evil was that which weakened the tribe by causing divisiveness and intra-tribal strife. Shamans quickly discovered that using God as a super cop not only gave them power as the interpreter for the super cop, but allowed them to add control rules to the natural good and evil recognized intuitively by the tribe.

As societies got larger the God interpreted good and evil was no longer effective as inter-tribal warfare was the norm for God, and the society needed to control this with secular laws and punishments for transgressions in this life not the next.

Good and evil were still defined by what created trust and cooperation and evil was still that which created divisiveness and strife. One important advancement in larger societies was recognizing that God inspired intra-tribal strife was an important evil and must be controlled."

Scientific Literacy

Scientific Illiteracy - Beliefnet:

"Your elitism is showing, I know people of average intelligence that paid attention in good schools that can read a science article in the NYTimes and discuss, for example, the political implications with competence and incidentally correct English. That is what I mean by scientific literacy. In fact I have discussed science articles with a Down's Syndrome adult, that could make sense of them and make reasonable decisions about them. No special ed. Just an ordinary NYC public high school. He took biology and chemistry, and was delighted that I had a BS in Chem and would discuss things with him. Yeah, a Nobel Prize isn't in his future, in fact college wasn't either, a minor problem with College Board scores. But he was very good at what he did, and did what he could with what he had intellectually."

Cultures Decay

The Bright Line... - Beliefnet:

There is no reason for amazement: surely one always knew
that cultures decay, and life's end is death.
Robinson Jeffers The Purse-Seine, 1937

"I might add that religious cultures also decay. In any event life's end is death. For the theist, for the failed theist and for the atheist: life's end is death. Perhaps only atheists have come to terms with that truth."

Christianity or Shinto

On replacing Christianity with Shinto - Beliefnet:

"I find the evolutionary reason behind religion is not spiritual fulfillment, but for community identity. The spiritual fulfillment is co-opted by the shamans as a community building and unifying technique.

While Shinto has some very attractive attributes, I suspect that trying to convert Christians is a lost cause. Christ gives hope to the hopeless at least after they die, and the minister makes sure they are hopeless sinners, at least in their own minds.

A more useful exercise, is to promote 'Progressive Christianity' with its emphasis on Jesus' teachings of a direct personal relationship with God and its corollary love your neighbors even if your other neighbors hate them. It is a natural progression for Christians who get tired of the hellfire and damnation bigotry of traditional Christian teachings. They get to keep their Jesus mediated afterlife, and all the spirituality. A much easier conversion process.

I find the Two Great Commandments very easy to live with as an atheist, and the personal God of the first does not bother me at all. If a person needs to believe and many do, the absence of proselytizing is welcome. They will of course be enthusiastic about sharing, but they can't really tell you how to believe in their God except have faith. Much easier to live with than Christ or Hell, take your pick. As the classic Jack Benny line goes 'I am still thinking about it'"

Tell Me of the God You Don't Believe In.

When You Say "God"... - Beliefnet:

"In the general sense, anything that is greater than, and superior to, an individual that an individual can commune with is not useful for me. I do not say it doesn't exist for a believer but I suspect it is an emergent property of a human mind after years of conditioning or, as the religious say, indoctrination.

I have yet to encounter an emergent God that I would wish to commune with, although there are many that I can learn from. I learn from the myths, stories, beliefs, rituals, and the related liturgy relating to them. Usually what not to do, and what is immoral that the gods try to justify: Genocide, misogyny, sexual sin, even misanthropy for at least one common God."

The concept of sexual sin is probably the most prevalent immorality in many religions. There is always something, usually nearly everything, that one can do with sexual parts that is sinful. These activities are all natural reward mechanisms for creating and preserving the pair bond. Shamans observe that pair bonding interferes with God bonding. So anything that improves the pair bond must be sinful. A properly pair bonded couple turns inward to the relationship first, and to the family and extended face group that they can effect and which effects them. Generally this extended face group will exclude God as they can never hope to be face to face with God.