Jefferson Bible

Dawkins Scale - Beliefnet Forums: "I find the Jefferson Bible useful in focusing on just what it was that induced Jesus' cult (the original disciples) to follow the Roman custom of making a God out of any special person. It is not to be read instead of the Gospels, but along with them.

I think the deification of Jesus was also critical in preserving the Gospels in the canon after Paul trashed his message to create the Christ he needed to save Christians from the sins that Jesus seemed to care little about. Reading the Jefferson Bible along with Paul is an exercise in cognitive dissonance that makes one wonder why Paul chose Jesus."

A life worth dying for.

Hell - Beliefnet Forums: "I suspect that I am much closer to death both in age and in the experience of the death of loved ones than you are. To quote a theist friend that I respect and admire who is now dying,

Birth and death are the hinges on which life hangs, insure you live a life worth dying for.
Forrest Church.

If there is anything after death, highly unlikely according to the evidence I have, it will have to be a continuation of the life one lived prior to death. Good people who paid attention to all their neighbors and tried to make their lives better will be remembered by those people well, and if there is any continuation of life will be able to meet those they have remembered well and those that remember them.

Whether or not there is a continuation after death, it is the fact of paying attention to all ones neighbors and trying to make their lives better that makes life worth dying for. Mistakes will be made, some neighbors have different and unknowable needs, but the mistakes will be of ignorance not some original sin that someone else had to die for.

Golden Weekend.

Tuesday night I hopped on the Jet Blue red eye to New York to re-experience Bob DeCormier conducting the Verdi Requiem. I knew it would be worth putting up with the heat, the humidity and all the other hassles of NYC for it. I tried to fill the downtime with a board of directors reunion, but Judy Rubin, both of them, had a better idea. Uptown Judy invited all who cared to come to her apartment down the street from the sing for wine and snacks prior to the sing. Midtown Judy promoted it to the alumni association and all the right people showed up including Bob and Louise. A great party setting just the right tone for the sing.

Bob exceeded my impossibly high expectations, and it is a good thing I knew the music well as half the time I couldn't read it through the tears.

By the way the weather was beautiful and the only downer of the weekend was that my nap was delayed due to a 3:00 check in time that BelleClaire beat by an hour and a half.

The next day I joined Rich and Margaret Greelish for Lunch and a boat tour of the fake waterfalls. The tour included a bonus of the Statue of Liberty for some reason, just more gold for the weekend.

The flight home was another bonus. The weather was clear all the way across the country and Jet Blue had XM to fill my noise suppressing earphones with good classical music both vocal and instrumental as I enjoyed the golden sunset all the way from the Midwest to San Jose. For the nitpickers it turned red about Denver, but it was just as golden while red.

Jesus and progressive Christianity.

Dawkins Scale - Beliefnet Forums: "I also think that this message of respect for all people flew in the face of most religions before and since, including the one sold by Paul based on the charisma of this preacher. I think it is a very important message for the modern world where global interdependence is the reality of living. Modern 'Progressive' Christianity is doing the same thing Jefferson did, with a few more miracles for flavor, and stripping the Christian message to the Great Commandments. They do not give up God, or the divine Jesus, they are theists after all, but they do give up the exclusiveness and hatred that are part of the Abrahamic tradition."

Bible Study.

What if you are wrong? - Beliefnet Forums: "I can look up on my active bookshelf and see 8 Bibles all of which I have read with intelligent understanding of what they are saying about God and the people who believe in God. I did not read them to buttress tales told to children and adults to cause them to worship God and support those who sell God. It is not surprising that we disagree on the content."

Incitement to kill?

The liberal poliical bias in the UUA - Beliefnet Forums: "I do not consider hate speech the only culpable incitement for sociopathological acts. Particularly from people in positions to claim to speak for a higher power. I am not speaking legally here. Just from the standpoint of society. 'God hates faggots, liberals, and Unitarians' is not saying go out and kill them. But if someone 'beset with personal demons' chooses to eliminate those whom God hates, can the promoter of that hate be held harmless? I think not."

Evolutionary success

Pet ownership an affront to Islam - Beliefnet Forums: "Numbers don't necessarily count for evolutionary success, see the buffalo, the passenger pigeon. or the dodo. It will be interesting to see what happens to the Islamic world when the oil money runs out. Just as it will be interesting to see what will happen to the religious right when their political power runs out. Their base is the poorest, the fattest, and the least educated in the US. In evolutionary terms success in measured in generations, fecundity is of course significant, but success in the modern world is measured in intellectual property, and using it effectively. It will be interesting to see how home schooling and Bible Colleges compete for the jobs at the next Google."

Copies of Copies

What if you are wrong? - Beliefnet Forums: "Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot. So, the young monk gets worried and goes downstairs to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall, and wailing 'We forgot the 'R', we forgot the 'R'.' His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably. The young monk asks the old abbot, 'What's wrong, father?' With a choking voice, the old abbot replies, 'The word was 'celebrate'.....! '"

Purpose in Life.

Looking for an Atheist - Beliefnet Forums:

Is it simply for the biological purpose of continuing the species?

This is a major misunderstanding of evolution and the universe in general. Biology has no purpose and neither does evolution. Evolution is just another scientific law. You put sodium and chlorine together you get salt. Not because somebody needs salt, or finds sodium or chlorine dangerous they are simply more stable as salt than separate. A species that is effective in filling an ecological niche has no purpose in filling the niche, but is a stable solution. The fact that filling the niche well increases the welfare and continuation of the species is a result not a purpose.

I have to find some other purpose in life than continuing the species because frankly a large part of my species is not worth continuing. Therefore I find purpose starting very locally. There are people whose welfare is integral with my own. They provide me with the intellectual challenge, love, sustenance and fun that makes my life worth living. By making my purpose to provide the same for those others I get a nice feedback loop that increases worth of all our lives. Although this starts locally, as one recognizes the importance of people outside of the face group ones purpose must expand as well to take into account the larger world one is a part of.

Believing in God.

Fundie Atheists? - Beliefnet Forums: "I do not believe in God. There is no God or god that I will accept as having any influence on me or that I will believe in or worship.

I was not aware that rejecting all evidence that other people believe in God was a requirement of atheism. And by the way where are these requirements written down? I think on another thread there are people arguing that there is no requirement for being an atheist and therefore fundamentalist atheist is an oxymoron. We are all open minded, going where ever the evidence leads us! The only reason we don't believe in God is that God has not provided unmistakable evidence of Herm existence.

Some people don't look very hard. I look harder than most but still have not found a God that works for me. I may have found gods that work for other people, but since none of them work for me I am an atheist by Ken's definition. I do not believe in God. It is not that I reject clear evidence of the existence of God, it is that the evidence does not convince me that belief would be useful for me."

Fundie Atheists

Fundie Atheists? - Beliefnet Forums: "You will note that I have been run out of the fundie atheist club for having the temerity to consider the possibility that God actually exists for theists. Which, of course, bothers me not a bit. It is a club I would not consider joining even if invited. One of the founders of this board, Charles Fiterman, had no problem with the existence of Gods. It was almost his tag line that Gods were small statues, emperors, and anything else that could coerce or induce belief. For him the defining characteristic of an atheist was not willingly believing in or worshiping such gods.

If someone wants to claim herm god is real and shits on a golden throne in heaven I have no problem saying 'That's nice, what can your god do for me?' Arguing about what the other person believes about the characteristics of God (it is never a god) including existence and attributes is a great way to learn nothing. But inviting the believer to talk about what hesh believes God can do for a non-believer is always amusing, and sometimes useful. I will actually suspend disbelief, that is temporarily believe God exists when attending church with a friend and when performing or rehearsing religious music. It is always useful, frequently I add to my knowledge about living and dying, and so far I have always been able to unsuspend the disbelief. In fact I learn most thinking about the experience afterward. What did I learn as a believer that I can use as an atheist. There is a reason some religions last thousands of years. They help people get through life."

Britten War Requiem

Just a quick explanation for my inattention over the last week. The San Francisco Choral Society which I sing with just performed the Britten War Requiem twice over the weekend. About 300 of us tried to fill Davies Symphony Hall in SF with this powerful work. Reviews were good so it was worth all the extra time and effort.

I am still decompressing, and have lots of catching up to do irl and online. Hope to be caught up soon.

Christian Heroes

What if you are wrong? - Beliefnet Forums: "Originally Posted by CaliberCadillac

Not when one remembers that this very precious treasure was a progressive revelation that started with the first man on earth, was perpetuated through the only family to survive a world wide deluge, re-initiated with Abraham, documented by Moses, and finally completed in Christ.

The character, morals, and behavior of all of these heroes of this progressive revelation and the implication that God found them to be the kind of people Hesh wanted to use as the foundation of Herm group of believers was the convincer that the God depicted was totally worthless and devoid of any qualities to inspire worship. BTW you forgot Lot."

On prayer

In my email:

A friend sent me an email this morning that was a chain letter about prayer.
The idea is that you say a prayer to bless the person who sent you the
email and then you forward the email to at least 5 of your friends who
will pray for you.

I didn't want to forward that particular email as it had pictures and
content that I didn't feel the need to share, especially as I am not a
member of the particular religion.
However, I sure did pray for her and I like the idea of "pay it
forward" email prayer.
A great deal of research has been done on the power of prayer and I
believe in it, even though I am still working on defining my specific
religious beliefs and spiritual identity.

I thought it would be nice to start again using my own thoughts and
words and make it personal and ask all of you to pray for me and mine
today.
I don't care if you forward this email on as it is or write one of
your own, but I think the internet prayer circle is a neat idea.

Live and Let Die

Is there a bridge? - Beliefnet Forums: "I was born and bred atheist. I had many friends who were religious and had no problems talking to them about their religion and what they were getting from it. It never occurred to me that they were wrong in their beliefs, but none of them came close to working for me. I never cared about the existence of God. If God worked for a friend of mine, no problem, God bless herm. Even fundamentalist Christians. If they tried to convert me, I simply said I was not ready yet and asked what their faith did for them. They put my name on the next convert board in their mind which was no skin off my nose, and happily told me all the wonderful things about their faith. I had to suppress my gag reflex occasionally as impolite, but I am used to that.

I have learned much about living from my conversations with theists, and my study of the Mass in order to sing it properly, but the God belief never made any sense to me. God just is irrelevant to my life.

There seem to be good reasons for the fact that God is useful to a large segment of the US population. Whether these reasons will be sufficient in a society where information is a free good is an open question, and I suspect not. However, religions will become irrelevant due to their own inadequacies, not because of anything I or the atheist ranters can say about them. To quote Ian Flemming "Live and Let Die."

I have better things to do than to help them die. "

Indoctrinating our children.

Scripture-quoting tots - Beliefnet Forums: "We all brainwash and indoctrinate our children. It is how we prepare them to live in the society we have chosen to bring them up in. It is necessary and proper that we do so. The alternative is usually a dysfunctional adult.

Fortunately, humans have evolved a powerful trait that causes a pubescent human to at least question if not reject out of hand all of the indoctrination of herm parents. This levens the society, (from baking, creating holes in the structure) to make it more interesting."

Jesuism

Jesuism - Beliefnet Forums: "I suspect most atheists have not bothered to separate the teachings of Jesus the man, from the crap grafted on by John and Paul to create Christ Jesus the savior.

Thomas Jefferson has done this for us in The Jefferson Bible. He littered the floor of the President's office with trash from the bible created by Paul and others, until he had distilled the essence of Jesus from the rest of the bible. I claim Jefferson as the first Jesuist, he certainly was an atheist, (politically a Deist) and wanted to salvage something from Christianity, again for political reasons, to keep the Black Regiment of New England preachers quiet(er.) Whether he succeeded politically or not, The Jefferson Bible is a concise and readable way to discover the ministry of Jesus."

Note: This and related posts have been consolidated on Thinking on the Blue Roads

Footnote the (2011) Wiki article of the same name was simply a ripoff of the name to simplify Jesusism which is what his article is about. But what do you expect from Wiki.

Theistic Jesuism

Jesuism - Beliefnet Forums: "Jesuism is really designed for Christians who, having lost faith in Paul's Christ have moved back to the Gospels for meaning and morality. Once they get comfortable without a savior many of them find they don't need God either. Particularly the God of the OT and Paul who was more worried about idol worship than people treating each other right. They can salvage most of their 'Jesus loves me' conditioning with Jesus as exemplar rather than God, and even worship in their same church.

You will hear them talking about Jesus ministering to the poor, the prostitutes, the gays, the fishermen, and other common people. You will also hear them focusing their religion down to the Second Great Commandment
Quote:
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself
with the gloss of Matt 25:40
Quote:
As ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

It is the teaching of radical respect for all people which separates Jesus from all of the religious teachers of his time, including Paul by the way. Until Jesus, religion was all about us vs them, 'We are the world's sweet chosen few, the rest of you be damned.' After Jesus it was more of the same. Fortunately Paul hijacked his charisma and caused the preservation of the synoptics to document it, incidentally preserving the message of radical respect to be rediscovered by those who can relate to it.

Some might call them Synoptic Christians since for them the NT stops before John. But they believe Jesus is the Son of God by the Holy Spirit, who was sent to earth to teach the humanist message of Love your neighbors, all of them, even the Samaritans, respect the poor, the meek, the thieves, the whores and even the people who hate you. In short how to live this life. Many of them take the next step and don't worry about an afterlife believing that how they live this life is all that matters to God.

I might agree that there is little of Christ in their beliefs but they call themselves Christians for traditional reasons, as many of them are found in traditional Christian Churches. Some call themselves Progressive Christians, and if I were an arrogant asshole telling people what they believe I would call them theist Jesuists. I am not, so I call them Christians.

Raising Atheists.

To atheists who had Christian parents - Beliefnet Forums: "One of the things my parents did to make it impossible to accept Christianity was to encourage me to read the bible. All of it. From Gen 1:1 to Rev 22:21.

I came home with some stories from Bible School, (a summer camp they thought would amuse me) and they asked where did that come from?
The Bible, said I.
But where in the Bible? they asked.
I dunno.
Find out."

Jesuism

Jesuism - Beliefnet Forums: "Jesuism in the West is an atheistic worldview based on the teachings of Jesus as documented in the Gospels including the recently discovered Gnostic Gospels of Thomas and Judas. A Jesuist rejects the supernatural accretions to the stories about Jesus as mnemonic and marketing devices typical of the age, and rejects all theistic references including self-references by Jesus as metaphorical devices to communicate with the prevailing Jewish and Pagan religions.

To understand Jesuism one must understand the concept of radical respect for all people taught by Jesus in the Beatitudes, the Good Samaritan, the Adulteress, and indeed in all the stories involving Jesus directly. While Jesus believed in the eventual judgment by his God to help formulate and sell the radical concept that all people are to be accepted as brothers and sisters, the Jesuist will accept this as part of the religious culture Jesus dedicated his life to changing. Jesus was a Jew who believed in the Abrahamic God concept, but his rebellion was as much against his own God as the religion of the Jews he was immersed in.

The Jefferson Bible is a useful condensation of the traditional teachings of Jesus and could be considered the Holy Book of the Jesuist. And part of the traditional Unitarian “Affirmation”

Unitarians believe in
…the brotherhood of man
The leadership of Jesus...

The Sound of Rain

Defend Yourself - Page 2 - Beliefnet Forums: "The sound of rain needs no translation. - Roshi Morimoto"

Chiyo is an ex-Christian Buddhist

Changing Christianity

what do you think about being homosexual and being a christian? - Beliefnet Forums: "I think the movement we see here among some Catholic Parishes and in other Christian denominations toward the Gospels and the Two Great Commandments is a necessary and sufficient condition for the revitalization of Christianity as path to God for many people. I think Christianity has moved farther than you think in this direction, but if you think about it it is almost by definition a quiet movement. Loving your neighbor and turning the other cheek doesn't generate a lot of controversy, but does make a huge difference in the feeling of the community and the acceptance of the presence of God."

Legacy continued

How do you think about death? - Beliefnet Forums: "I learned long ago that you cannot pray your way to immortality, and you can't wish it either. Either I have done my job right and the proud thoughts will be carried on by those who follow, and my species will be a little better off for my being here and posting on the net, and guiding my children and grandchildren and my family. They are already going beyond my ability to contribute and this is as it should be. I don't give up, I may yet have something to contribute, but I am a realist, in some areas I don't even try. An idea comes up I can't wrap my mind around and I 'discuss it with my pillow.' and choose the oblivion of sleep. As more and more things come up I can't wrap my mind around, I will follow the family tradition of choosing not to live any longer. Quite confident that as I have incorporated all of their proud thoughts into my space, those that follow will do the same. Not only for me but for those whose proud thoughts came before mine and enabled them."

Bible based religions dying out?

What if you are wrong? - Beliefnet Forums: "The God as depicted in the Bible has a few useful attributes, dealing with tribal loyalties, but taken as a whole the God depicted in the Bible is totally dysfunctional for any modern society as is being played out in many countries. The God of the Bible is causing several sects and one major religion to suicide as a society. It won't be quick or pretty but the writing is on the wall."

Morality without God

What if you are wrong? - Beliefnet Forums: "The problem with this whole line of thinking is that with God whether it is the Old Testament God of Abraham, or the New Testament God of Paul, The moral laws given by God are contrary to any reasonable formula for living in a pluralistic society....
Thank you I will struggle along with a social foundation for separating out good from evil that takes into account the inherent worth and dignity of all people of both genders, regardless of the God they worship, where they come from, and the color of their skin.

Fundie Atheists

What if you are wrong? - Beliefnet Forums: "What is it with the term fundie, anyway? Everybody seems to be offended as if it is a terrible insult.

I used the term for a common attitude on this board which is the refusal to accept the testimony of theists that the experience of God changed their behavior in observable ways as evidence for the existence of God.

To take an extreme example Paul Hill maintained through his execution for murder that God instructed him to save babies by killing a doctor that was aborting fetuses. The fundie atheist will say that God had nothing to do with this, that the man was insane, filled with religious fervor, deluded, or anything but that God actually told him to do it and therefore must have existed at least for Paul Hill. Personally, I think the simplest, most efficient explanation of Paul Hill's behavior is that an entity separate from Paul Hill exerted a powerful influence on him to cause his behavior, that might as well be called God just as Paul Hill said it was.

Is God going to affect me? No, I am an atheist. I do not accept God in my space. But do I believe God exists? For Paul Hill certainly. For my other friends who experience God? Of course. I will even pray for them. Hey, it is their God, Hesh listens to prayers, why not? No skin off my nose.

Atheism is

A Cool Utterance - Beliefnet Forums: "Being alive in a society that includes other people, involves interacting with them, finding a reason to do so, and finding meaning, that is stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain, for those interactions. This is all done with the awareness that life may end at any time and will end eventually.

Atheism is the process of developing solutions to these issues that do not involve a little tinhorn in the fancy dress in an overdecorated balcony or a supernatural omnipotent alpha humanoid. A lack of belief in God, gods, or fairies is absolutely irrelevant to my atheism. My atheism is living a rich, full, meaningful life for as long as I can, and leaving a rich, full, meaningful legacy for those that follow. The fact that God is nowhere to be found is absolutely meaningless."

Living in the space between birth and death.

How do you think about death? - Beliefnet Forums:

"From a different part of Legacy, from John Dobbs:
Quote:
REMINDER
The world began the day that I was born
and on the day I die the world will end.
Between these dates there will have been
matters of great importance.


I have no problem with the fact that the world began on the day that I was born. From my predecessors, alive and dead, I was left a rich legacy of a valuable space, filled with beautiful music and wonderful people. Many of of those wonderful people are dead, some long dead, but I can still appreciate their art and thinking from their legacies. Each day I look forward to the exciting challenge of incorporating as much as possible into my space. I eagerly do what I can to make the space even more valuable. Then, with as much love as possible I pass it on to those who will pay it forward.

I have no problem with the fact that, again from
Quote:
REMINDER
...there is nothing I can leave
on the final date
but a legacy of urgencies.

If I have lived my life well, and loved enough, there will be many around willing and able to deal with those urgencies."

Creating Gods

Darwinists for Jesus - Beliefnet Forums: "humans have been creating gods since the beginning of being sapient. Some of the earliest prehistoric figurines were fertility goddesses. Gods are useful for Kings and Shamans to make the buck stop somewhere up there instead of here where it belongs. But be that as it may, I was created from an extraordinarily long line of individuals doing their best to survive and pass on their genetic and recently memetic heritage. ...We are much too busy surviving and doing our best to pass on our genetic and memetic heritage so that those that follow us will have a better and more intellectually exciting world to live in."

The source of meaning.

How do you think about death? - Beliefnet Forums: "My meaning comes from a single, observable universe that I occupy temporarily, and affect in a way that those important to me will have a slightly better place to occupy temporarily to affect for those that follow. I am a way point in an extraordinarily long sequence of individuals occupying their space temporarily leaving a legacy of something a little better for their successors. There were failures along the way, and perhaps I will be another, but my meaning comes from insuring that it isn't so. I can only do so much and must trust my successors to carry on when I am no longer able to do so, and I will die, if not willingly, with the confidence that I have given them the valuable and useful space to do so."

Referent for stimulated God response.

God Helmets OBEs Illusions and a Cosmic Presence. - Beliefnet Forums: "The brain does not exist in a vacuum. The brain operates by electromagnetic and chemical stimulation, normally naturally occurring. A muscle twitches, the nerve impulse is transmitted to the brain, is sorted out and directed to the appropriate areas of the brain to generate a useful response.

A natural response can be generated artificially by chemical or electromagnetic stimulation of the appropriate areas of the brain. This is routing neuroscience. Stimulate the pleasure centers and you get a reflection of previous pleasure responses. But the previous pleasure responses are critical. I don't think anyone argues that the stimulated pleasure response is imaginary in the sense that it arises without a previous history of similar natural responses.

So my question for you is what is the source of the previous history of religious experiences that is stimulated by the electromagnetic signals or naturally overstimulated by Temporal Lobe Epilepsy? A related question is what is source of the electromagnetic stimulation of the temporal lobes in the few hundred million ordinary believers without TLE who have experienced the presence of God? As far as I know EM stimulation was extremely uncommon prior to the 20th century and a lot of people claimed to know God back then."

Referent for stimulated God response.

God Helmets OBEs Illusions and a Cosmic Presence. - Beliefnet Forums: "The brain does not exist in a vacuum. The brain operates by electromagnetic and chemical stimulation, normally naturally occurring. A muscle twitches, the nerve impulse is transmitted to the brain, is sorted out and directed to the appropriate areas of the brain to generate a useful response.

A natural response can be generated artificially by chemical or electromagnetic stimulation of the appropriate areas of the brain. This is routing neuroscience. Stimulate the pleasure centers and you get a reflection of previous pleasure responses. But the previous pleasure responses are critical. I don't think anyone argues that the stimulated pleasure response is imaginary in the sense that it arises without a previous history of similar natural responses.

So my question for you is what is the source of the previous history of religious experiences that is stimulated by the electromagnetic signals or naturally overstimulated by Temporal Lobe Epilepsy? A related question is what is source of the electromagnetic stimulation of the temporal lobes in the few hundred million ordinary believers without TLE who have experienced the presence of God? As far as I know EM stimulation was extremely uncommon prior to the 20th century and a lot of people claimed to know God back then."

Soruce of stimulated God responses.

God Helmets OBEs Illusions and a Cosmic Presence. - Beliefnet Forums: "The brain does not exist in a vacuum. The brain operates by electromagnetic and chemical stimulation, normally naturally occurring. A muscle twitches, the nerve impulse is transmitted to the brain, is sorted out and directed to the appropriate areas of the brain to generate a useful response.

A natural response can be generated artificially by chemical or electromagnetic stimulation of the appropriate areas of the brain. This is routing neuroscience. Stimulate the pleasure centers and you get a reflection of previous pleasure responses. But the previous pleasure responses are critical. I don't think anyone argues that the stimulated pleasure response is imaginary in the sense that it arises without a previous history of similar natural responses.

So my question for you is what is the source of the previous history of religious experiences that is stimulated by the electromagnetic signals or naturally overstimulated by Temporal Lobe Epilepsy? A related question is what is source of the electromagnetic stimulation of the temporal lobes in the few hundred million ordinary believers without TLE who have experienced the presence of God? As far as I know EM stimulation was extremely uncommon prior to the 20th century and a lot of people claimed to know God back then."

An atheist finds God quite naturally.

God Helmets OBEs Illusions and a Cosmic Presence. - Beliefnet Forums: "Because of my fascination with the Mass, I have frequently joined good friends who were devout Catholics to their worship services. As you may know I suspend disbelief from the time I leave home, and try to participate as a Catholic in the service. I stay closely in emotional contact with my friend and try to mimic herm responses to better understand what it is that hesh is experiencing. My friends are in agreement that once they enter the church and genuflect, they feel they are in the presence of God. So I tried it. Like Dawkins I don't have much in the way of religious experiences to work with, but on a few occasions I have been able to mirror my friends feeling of the presence of an other. I don't have a God referent in my temporal lobes, so the presence was undefined, but seemed to be identifiable as separate from the others in the church."

Looking at Yesterday's Genes for Tomorrow's Cures: Scientific American

Looking at Yesterday's Genes for Tomorrow's Cures: Scientific American: "And Ivics, who in 1997 reanimated another ancient transposon that he dubbed Sleeping Beauty, showed last year that he could control its insertion site by directing it to specific target sequences. “Even if this technology is not mature enough yet for clinical use, the proof of concept has been done,” he says. Studying how the Harbinger3_DR transposon naturally targets specific sequences may also reveal some useful new techniques."

How do you think about death?

Death - Beliefnet Forums:
To paraphrase Forrest Church, who by the way, is a theist, death is the reason many of us try to live a life that will be worth dying for. Most atheists have come to terms with the near certainty that death is the recycling of the body and the recycling of The proud thoughts and the humble things that were important to the deceased.

In the extremely unlikely event that there is some continuity after death, it will be a natural result of being alive. The only possible scenario that I can conceive of is that the continuation, spirit if you will, will be able to interact with all the other deceased spirits that were important prior to death.

As noted the probability of this is so close to nil that I had better enjoy The proud thoughts and the humble things of the legacy of all that have preceded me and enabled the richness of my living. I devote most of my effort to contributing to and enriching that legacy, that those that follow me may have even more to work with and recycle."

Paul's Contribution to Christian theology

Dust - Beliefnet Forums: "The good news is that in order to support Paul the council had to preserve the Gospels to give Paul the charisma of Jesus to build his Christ on. The bad news is that Paul's proscriptive top down theology appealed to the Christian priesthood, and not incidentally to Constantine, who needed a unifying religion that he could control through the same priesthood to keep order in the populace. The preservation of the Gospels is about the only good thing Christianity did theologically for over a thousand years. Opinions may vary on their political contributions."

Evolution and the God Gene

The Atheist Test - Beliefnet Forums: "The elimination of the God Gene is clear evidence of modern evolution. Prior to the 18th century it was almost impossible to survive in western society without this adaptation to living in a church dominated culture. With the Enlightenment, those without the God gene who were able to think for themselves about important social and political issues prospered and in many areas of Europe and the US have become dominant in the society."

On sin and hatred.

The Atheist Test - Beliefnet Forums: "We are all sinners. Everyone of us."
Speak for your self, Christian, the rest of us are basically good people. Acts of unkindness are generally inadvertent, and yes, we repent and try to learn from them to be even better people, more empathetic, and compassionate toward the people important to our society. Ideally that would be everybody, but some Christians and Muslims make it hard to even come close to that ideal. It is hard not to return hatred with antipathy, but I try to return hatred with its opposite, indifference. Your hatred, like your God, means nothing to me, I refuse to accept its relevance to my life."

On the Bible, the Liturgy and Paul

The Atheist Test - Beliefnet Forums: "Please understand that I can live without God for my entire life. I find the Bible to be a poor guide to anything, too much extraneous garbage getting in the way of the message. I much prefer the distillation of the meaning of the bible contained in the Mass and other Christian Liturgy. There are some useful messages there, but even in the liturgy there are inclusions from the teachings of Paul which I reject in their entirety. The most important that I reject is the concept of Christ as Savior. I find nothing in the teachings of Jesus suggesting that concept which was created out of whole cloth by Paul and grafted on the charisma of Jesus, who after all was too dead to complain."

Thoughts on Dies Irae

Hell - Beliefnet Forums: "Some should fear the discordant Brass in the Berlioz Requiem. It is summoning them to infamy. The human choir tries to call them to harmony, but for many the brass wins. (It always does in the Berlioz, I guess there is something discordant in us all that needs to be dealt with.)"

Dies Irae- Judging the deceased.

Hell - Beliefnet Forums: "Although I am not a believer in an afterlife of the body or soul, I do find that a semblance of immortality is achieved in how we are remembered by those whose lives we touch. Perhaps this is why I like the Dies Irae in the mass. The trumpets sound and we think of our deceased acquaintances. Surely they are judged, as they have sown, 'He brought laughter and irony into my life' 'He was a stinking asshole. Shitting on everything that he disagreed with.'"

In Celebration: George Carlin 1937-2008 - Beliefnet Forums

In Celebration: George Carlin 1937-2008 - Beliefnet Forums: "By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth,” read a message on Mr. Carlin’s Web site, GeorgeCarlin.com, and he spent much of his life in a fervent effort to counteract the forces that would have it so. In his always irreverent, often furious social commentary, in his observations of the absurdities of everyday life and language, and in groundbreaking routines like the profane “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” he took aim at what he thought of as the palliating and obfuscating agents of American life — politicians, advertisements, religion, the media and conventional thinking of all stripes."

God is?

God Helmets OBEs Illusions and a Cosmic Presence. - Beliefnet Forums: "The sensation in the minds of religious believers that there is a strong presence of another entity in the space with them, not identifiable with any of the other people that may be present. The characteristics of the sensed entity are normally determined by the traditions of the local society, and may or may not contain supernatural attributes like extraordinary wisdom or power."

The responsibility of the living.

How to get through the tough times - Beliefnet Forums: "Yet we who must live have a responsibility to continue the legacy, yes, frequently blinded by tears, and crippled by the shared pain, we must do for the dying what they cannot do for themselves. Your father is crying because he cannot pop over and see his grandchildren, can you not do that for him?"

How I got here.

God Helmets OBEs Illusions and a Cosmic Presence. - Beliefnet Forums: "Until I was about 20 I was a hard scientist, chemist mainly but physicist as well. Did the science fairs, formal and informal, and learned all I could about becoming a chemist. About the middle of my sophomore year I discovered that I was a wise moron, wise about chemistry and a moron about everything else. I didn't like the self image. I had always been interested in 'living' issues, religion, sociology, and philosophy and spent three quarters getting a academic foundation in those subjects. I maintained my scientific worldview even in these areas, and participated in experiments in mass hysteria, and crowd manipulation."

I was a milk atheist.  And did not become interested in religious studies until my pre-teens. 
Then it was pure social curiosity and understanding the music I was singing.  It still does not bother me that others choose patronizing ignorance. Some seem to need it. 
Nonetheless as a moral human I must do what I can to resist the imposition of patronizing ignorance on those who do not choose to accept it, and to expose it for what it is to those who may wish to understand and/or escape its pernicious influence.   

Charles Fiterman

Needs a post of his own on this blog. His influence is pervasive. He has been a part of my valuable and useful space since I first encountered his small statues, and cavemen beating each other on the head and the body on the atheist boards at beliefnet. I return to his Appreciation/Celebration thread frequently to remind myself of my debt to him and to keep him an active participant in my space.

God is neither natural nor imaginary.

God Helmets OBEs Illusions and a Cosmic Presence. - Beliefnet Forums: "The God that my believer friends pray to and depend on for meaning and purpose in their lives is neither explainable by the physical sciences we are familiar with today, nor imaginary. They are tapping into some reservoir of collective wisdom about living in their society."

On heros and Gods

Questions for Atheists 2 - Beliefnet Forums: "Humans tend to make their heroes larger than life. Why should Gods be exempt?"

A Friend's tribute to his late wife

An atheist friend of mine lost his wife of 33 years recently. The following tribute is his beautiful response:

When someone has sweetened your existence with a strong “sense of life,” transforming every dark and shaded place around you to warmth, even the grief one feels in the hours of separation appears out-of-place in the brightness of her after-glow. It is easy to see her mark upon the Earth, etched forever in the hearts and minds of those that she loved and those that couldn't help but love her, too.

When a life-thread so vibrant is unexpectedly snapped, this awful circumstance comes upon us like a dark cloud; for some time we feel we cannot find our way without her guidance. Look carefully and you will still see a trail lined with candles that she left for each of us, to help us find the path to joy, to take up those candles, to light them and to share them with another person trying to find their way through life.