http://foru.ms/t6393685-are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation.html
"One doesn't need Moses and the Ten Commandments to know that murder is wrong. The golden rule was understood in even the most rudimentary of societies long before it was enunciated by Jesus. Morality is not a shopping list of rules handed down from on high; it is the product of reason. It's all the rules about what to wear on your head and whether or not we can eat pigs I don't get."
-John Moore
"God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be tortured for eternity in hell. That's not free will. It's like a man telling his girlfriend, do what you wish, but if you choose to leave me, I will track you down and blow your brains out. When a man says this we call him a psychopath. When god says the same we call him "loving" and build churches in his honor."
-- William C. Easttom II
"The fundamental core of contemporary Darwinism, the theory of DNA-based reproduction and evolution, is now beyond dispute among scientists. It demonstrates its power every day, contributing crucially to the explanation of planet-sized facts of geology and meteorology, through middle-sized facts of ecology and agronomy, down to the latest microscopic facts of genetic engineering. It unifies all of biology and the history of our planet into a single grand story. Like Gulliver tied down in Lilliput, it is unbudgeable, not because of some one or two huge chains of argument that might -- hope against hope -- have weak links in them, but because it is securely tied by thousands of threads of evidence anchoring it to virtually every other area of human knowledge." - Daniel Dennett
youtube.com/watch?v=w4fQA9mt-Mg
www.cafepress.com/irreligion
forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=60509
nodeity.com/#default
www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell2.htm
forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=64439
Philosophy for children:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Lipman
Notice: I am on hiatus from Allpoetry for the time being. I have not died, I am simply uninspired poetically and am going through some pretty turbulent times dealing with numerous issues, healthwise, socially, academically, etc.; I shall return eventually, though as of now my leave is indefinite.
"My conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true. Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity."
-- Bertrand Russell
"Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight to heaven."
-- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
AIM SN: Glacian723
Yahoo SN: akshel723
Email/MSN Messenger/Myspace: g!lacianmaelstrom@hotmail.com (Take out the
!')
Hello! Welcome to my poetry page. Here you'll find the works of ... Me. Occasionally, people who know me ask why I use "Glacian" online all the time. It's not really very interesting. I chose the name from an old book, "The Thran" (he's some loser who dies in the book), and it stuck.
My poetry here consists of some of the earlier writings I did, along with my more recent stuff, which mostly focuses on my feelings about the distance put between myself and "Faith". A long time ago, I believed in God, along with many other superstitions, like the whole buzz about aliens and UFO's. Time and experience brought me from a credulous "believer" into a skeptic. My turn from spirituality brought me through the study of other religions, and for a brief time I held quasi-spiritual pantheistic views, mixing some Eastern philosophy into my views. I decided that all religions really had the "same underlying message". A few months later, I discovered that their underlying message was bullshit, and concluded that all religion is bunk. I am now of the opinion that religion is what I'd call a "mind virus", a delusion that persists in far too many minds, and that all religion, for teaching falsities and superstitions, denying one the ability to think rationally, at least concerning the validity of the religious tenets themselves, and undermining human creativity and individuality by perpetuating an ideal in the normalmensch - a gaping hole of mediocrity to which human beings aspire, a single set of ideals that all are recommended to aspire to, rather than each individual walking their own path and finding their own truth. That being said, I regard religion with contempt and believe that through the light of reason, science, education, and rational thought we as a human race can expel nonsense, not only in the form of ESP, psychic powers, and belief in ghosts, but in the superstitions and dogmas of religions as well.
To the religious person who may say they pity me for "Believing in nothing" I say this: I believe in the universe. I believe in humanity. I believe in the power of the mind, and the resilience of the human spirit to overcome adversity. I believe in freedom, both from human bondage in the form of slavery and in the form of mental bondage to dogmas, doctrines, and paradigms. I believe in love, and I believe in life. But most of all, I believe in myself.
I've taken up as a rather militant atheist. I quickly went through the transition of a confused and doubting agnostic to an atheist to a stronger version - a positive atheist. Yes, I suppose I'm one of those rare breeds who denies the existence of God. I won't get into my defense of positive atheism here, but I will ask believers this: do you believe that Santa Claus exists? If not, proceed to this next question: Do you supsend judgment about his existence, shrug your shoulders, and say "I just don't know if he exists or not" or are you reasonably certain that Santa Claus does not exist? Think about it. I don't claim to know that no god of any kind at all exists. What I do know is this: Many organized religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism contain logical absurdities, and all-too-often gods with contradictory or impossible features. I know square circles do not exist. Likewise, I know that gods with contradictory properties also do not exist. To date, nobody has given me an intelligible and meaningful definition of God. That being said, I regard almost any person saying "God" as either uttering nonsense or uttering absurdity. I deny the existence of logical impossibilities and consider this position justified, and as for nonsense - well, I don't need to deny that...it's nonsense. So, in most cases, I take the non-cognitivist approach and consider "God" to be an vacuous word that means basically nothing. If you have a definition of God, I'd be happy to hear it. If it is intelligible and meaningful, I'd be happy to see you offer proof that it exists. Don't be surprised, however, if I disagree that "God is love" or "God is nature". That's baloney, and about as meaningful as my insisting God is a ham sandwich (and to some starving Africans, he may very well be.)
If you want to get to know me or contact for whatever reason, I'm available. I'm not the busiest person in the world.
Here on my author page I have a ton of quotes from various infidels and heathens, enjoy:
"The church still wonders why any Infidel should be wicked enough to endeavor to destroy her power.
I will tell the church why.
You have imprisoned the human mind; you have been the enemy of liberty; you have burned us at the stake -- wasted us upon slow fires -- torn our flesh with iron; you have covered us with chains -- treated us as outcasts; you have filled the world with fear; you have taken our wives and children from our arms; you have confiscated our property; you have denied us the right to testify in courts of justice; you have branded us with infamy; you have torn out our tongues; you have refused us burial. In the name of your religion, you have robbed us of every right; and after having inflicted upon us every evil that can be inflicted in this world, you have fallen upon your knees, and with clasped hands implored your God to torment us forever.
Can you wonder that we hate your doctrines -- that we despise your creeds -- that we feel proud to know that we are beyond your power -- that we are free in spite of you -- that we can express our honest thought, and that the whole world is grandly rising into the blessed light? Can you wonder that we point with pride to the fact that Infidelity has ever been found battling for the rights of man, for the liberty of conscience, and for the happiness of all? Can you wonder that we are proud to know that we have always been disciples of Reason, and soldiers of Freedom; that we have denounced tyranny and superstition, and have kept our hands unstained with human blood?"
--Robert Green Ingersoll
"Dear idiot.
Read authors comments. Also, remember that respecting all religions (esp the ones with records of peacefulness) is important."
-pozo, showing his deep respect for my beliefs by calling me an idiot, January 27th
I don't know what religion with "records of peacefulness" pozo is referring to, but if it's Christianity, then that must be an entirely sarcastic remark.
My initial question, which I will ask here, in case anyone would like to answer it for me was thus: "I have a question. Why should I respect a Christian's beliefs? Last time I checked, respect wasn't obligatory. If anything, I've found Christian beliefs to be ridiculous and irrational enough to warrant a complete lack of my respect; so, quite on the contrary, if you are claiming that you are a Christian (i.e., that at the very least, you believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ) then, at least as it pertains to your religious beliefs, I do not respect them, nor can anyone expect or compel me to. I do not respect Christian beliefs for the same reason that I do not respect racist, sexist, or irrational beliefs, and for the same reason that I do not respect someone's belief in astrology or Nazism...the reason being that I find these beliefs unjustified and irrational."
This is not meant to harass or discriminate against anyone. I'm not claiming that I will use this site or that I even necessarily believe in ridiculing or insulting others, but merely that there are certain views I do not respect; this is one of them, and despite it's popularity, nobody can compel me to respect someone else's views. Tolerate them, yes, but it would be as unfair a practice to demand respect for a belief as it would be to demand that one shares that belief. It's a violation of one's basic freedom to think for themselves and to freely express those thoughts.
Following this, I will share with you some quotes from H. L. Mencken and Richard Dawkins,
"Society bends over backward to be accommodating to religious sensibilities but not to other kinds of sensibilities. If I say something offensive to religious people, I'll be universally censured, including by many atheists. But if I say something insulting about Democrats or Republicans or the Green Party, one is allowed to get away with that. Hiding behind the smoke screen of untouchability is something religions have been allowed to get away with for too long."
- Richard Dawkins
"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy -- ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness -- that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what -- at last -- I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me."
- Bertrand Russell
"The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history."
-Robert Heinlein
“I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking. I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious. I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty... I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect. I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech... I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run. I believe in the reality of progress. I - But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.”
- H. L. Mencken
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: "I am looking for God! I am looking for God!"
As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.
"Where has God gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto."
Here the madman fell silent and again regarded his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time has not come yet. The tremendous event is still on its way, still travelling - it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves."
It has been further related that on that same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang a requiem. Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: "what are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of God?"
-The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche
"Look back at the eternity that passed before we were born and mark how utterly it counts to us as nothing. This is a mirror that nature holds up to us, in which we may see the time that shall be after we are dead. Is there anything terrifying in the sight - anything depressing - anything that is not more restful than the soundest sleep?"
- Lucretius
*Links*
atheistempire.com/main.html
www.randi.org/
www.infidelguy.com/
www.infidels.org/news/atheism/
www.sierratel.com/evildave/
www.sierratel.com/evildave/Gods.html
www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell3.htm
atheism.about.com/library/weekly/aa042600a.htm
www.infidels.org/news/atheism/media.html
freethought.freeservers.com/index.html
freethought.freeservers.com/reason/quotes.html
www.atheistempire.com/greatminds/index.html
www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/nogod/
*Quotes*
"Irreverence is the champion of liberty."
- Mark Twain
Gott ist tot: aber so wie die Art der Menschen ist, wird es vielleicht
noch jahrtausendlang Hohlen geben, in denen man seinen Schatten zeigt.
(God is dead: but considering the state Man is in, there will perhaps
be caves, for ages yet, in which his shadow will be shown.)
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."
- Thomas Paine
"These religions teach the slave virtues. They make inanimate things holy, and falsehoods sacred. They create artificial crimes. To eat meat on Friday, to enjoy yourself on Sunday, to eat on fast-days, to be happy in Lent, to dispute a priest, to ask for evidence, to deny a creed, to express your sincere thought, all these acts are sins, crimes against some god. To give your honest opinion about Jehovah, Mohammed or Christ, is far worse than to maliciously slander your neighbor. To question or doubt miracles is far worse than to deny known facts. Only the obedient, the credulous, the cringers, the kneelers, the meek, the unquestioning, the true believers, are regarded as moral, as virtuous. It is not enough to be honest, generous and useful; not enough to be governed by evidence, by facts. In addition to this, you must believe. These things are the foes of morality. They subvert all natural conceptions of virtue."
- Robert Ingersoll
"As far as I can determine, God is an abstract noun that refers to the general set of singularities resulting from any process of extrapolation based on incomplete information."
- Mark Thompson
"Our civilization is not Christian. It does not come from the skies. It is not a result of "inspiration." It is the child of invention, of discovery, of applied knowledge -- that is to say, of science. When man becomes great and grand enough to admit that all have equal rights; when thought is untrammeled; when worship shall consist in doing useful things; when religion means the discharge of obligations to our fellow-men, then, and not until then, will the world be civilized."
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "Reply To The Indianapolis Clergy" The Iconoclast, Indianapolis, Indiana (1882
"Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
- Steven Weinberg
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent... To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today... If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul."
- Isaac Asimov
A poor idea well written is more likely to be accepted than a good idea poorly written. Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
-- Isaac Asimov
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
- Voltaire
"Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do."
- Voltaire
"Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand."
- Mark Twain
"Most people can't bear to sit in church for an hour on Sundays. How are they supposed to live somewhere very similar to it for eternity?"
- Mark Twain
"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are serviley crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blind faith."
- Thomas Jefferson
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."
- Benjamin Franklin
"The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ."
- Thomas Jefferson
"Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world."
- Voltaire
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize [hu]mankind."
- Thomas Paine
"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
- Thomas Paine
"Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity [of opinion]. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites."
- Thomas Jefferson
"When I became convinced that the Universe is natural that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world, not even in infinite space. I was free.
free to think, to express my thoughts
free to live to my own ideal
free to live for myself and those I loved
free to use all my faculties, all my senses
free to spread imagination's wings
free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope
free to judge and determine for myself
free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past
free from popes and priests
free from all the "called" and "set apart"
free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies
free from the fear of eternal pain
free from the winged monsters of night
free from devils, ghosts, and gods
For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of my thought, no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings
no chains for my limbs
no lashes for my back
no fires for my flesh
no master's frown or threat
no following another's steps
no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words.
I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds. And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain for the freedom of labor and thought
to those who fell on the fierce fields of war
to those who died in dungeons bound with chains
to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs
to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn
to those by fire consumed
to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men.
And I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still."
- Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899), "Why Am I An Agnostic?", 1896
"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity."
- John Adams
"Blasphemy? No, it is not blasphemy. If God is as vast as that, he is above blasphemy; if He is as little as that, He is beneath it."
- Mark Twain
"it is believed by everyone that when he was in heaven he was stern, hard, resentful, jealous and cruel, but that when he came down to earth, he became the opposite... sweet, gentle merciful, forgiving. He was a thousand billion times crueler than ever he was in the Old Testament... Meek and gentle? By and by we will examine that popular sarcasm by the light of the hell which he invented."
- Mark Twain, in "Letters from the Earth"
"There is nothing in either savage or civilized history that is more utterly complete, more remorselessly sweeping than the Father of Mercy's campaign among the Midianites. The official report deals only in masses, all the virgins, all the men, all the babies. all 'creatures that breathe,' all houses. all cities. It gives you just one vast picture ...as far as the eye can reach, of charred ruins and storm-swept desolation... Would you expect this same conscienceless God, this moral bankrupt, to become a teacher of morals, of gentleness, of meekness, of righteousness, of purity?"
- Mark Twain, "Letters from Earth"
"The founder of a religion must be able to turn water into wine -- cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a simple touch the dead to life. It was necessary for him to demonstrate to the satisfaction of his barbarian disciple, that he was superior to nature. In times of ignorance this was easy to do. The credulity of the savage was almost boundless. To him the marvelous was the beautiful, the mysterious was the sublime. Consequently, every religion has for its foundation a miracle -- that is to say, a violation of nature -- that is to say, a falsehood.
No one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of a miracle. Nothing but falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until one is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power superior to, and independent of, nature."
- Robert Green Ingersoll, "The Gods" (1872)
"Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus."
- Thomas Jefferson
"I cannot accept any concept of God based on the fear of life or the fear of death or blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him I would be a liar."
- Albert Einstein
"I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
- Albert Einstein
"The star that shines above the dawn, the herald of the day, is Science, not superstition; Reason, not religion."
- Robert Ingersoll
"My objection to Christianity is that it is infinitely cruel, infinitely selfish, and, I might add, infinitely absurd."
- Robert Ingersoll
"Hands that help are far better than lips that pray."
- Robert Ingersoll
"Religion prevents our children from having a rational education; religion prevents us from removing the fundamental causes of war; religion prevents us from teaching the ethic of scientific cooperation in place of the old fierce doctrines of sin and punishment. It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion."
- Bertrand Russell
"I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous enough, or secret, subterranean and small enough - I call it the one immortal blemish upon the human race."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"The Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is, the principal enemy of moral progress in the world"
- Bertrand Russell
"We may define "faith" as the firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of "faith." We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. The substitution of emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife, since different groups, substitute different emotions."
- Bertrand Russell
"Why should I allow that same God to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown His own?"
- Robert Ingersoll
"It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane."
- Richard Dawkins
"As to the book called the Bible, it is blasphemy to call it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions and a history of bad times and bad men."
- Thomas Paine
"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets"
- Voltaire
“A great error is more easily propagated, than a great truth, because it is easier to believe, than to reason, and because people prefer the marvels of romances to the simplicity of history.”
- Charles François Dupuis
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
- Stephen Roberts
"Only the fool says in his heart: There is no god -- The wise says it to the world"
"The Bible is a mass of fables and traditions, mere mythology."
- Mark Twain
"Out of all of the sects of the world, we notice an uncanny coincidence: the overwhelming majority just happen to choose one that their parents' belong to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favour, the best miracles, the best music: when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing, compared to the matter of heredity. This is an unmistakable fact; nobody could seriously deny it. Yet people with full knowledge of the arbitrary nature of this heredity, somehow manage to go on believing in *their* religion, often with such fanaticism that they are prepared to murder people who follow a different one."
- Richard Dawkins
"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."
- Richard Dawkins
"Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons."
-Bertrand Russell
"Religion I found to be without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, serves principally to divide us and make us unfriendly to one another."
- Benjamin Franklin
"When a man ceases to believe in god, he does not believe in nothing. He believes in everything."
- G.K. Chesterson
"The alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short circuit destroying the mind."
- Ayn Rand
"If God has spoken, why is the world not convinced."
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
"Any belief worth having must survive doubt."
"God is an invention of Man. So the nature of God is only a shallow mystery. The deep mystery is the nature of Man."
- Nanrei Kobori
"What was it that Adam ate that he wasn't supposed to eat? It wasn't just an apple. It was the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The subtle message? 'Get smart and I'll fuck you over' sayeth the Lord. God is the smartest, and he doesn't want any Competition. Is this not an absolutely anti-intellectual religion?"
- Frank Zappa
"Could a being create the fifty billion galaxies, each with two hundred billion stars, then rejoice in the smell of burning goat flesh?"
- Ron Patterson
Matthew 10:32-38
"Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me."
"The 'establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment means at least this: neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion." U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, majority opinion; Everson v. Board of Education 330 U.S. 1 (1947) 7
"Which is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's?"
- Nietzsche
"If we go back to the beginnings of things, we shall always find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that imagination, rapture and deception embellished them; that weakness worships them; that custom spares them; and that tyranny favors them in order to profit from the blindness of men."
- Paul-Henri, baron d'Holbach
"There is not sufficient love and goodness in the world to permit us to give some of it away to imaginary beings."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable."
- Henry Louis Mencken
"There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as The Dark Ages."
- Ruth Hurmence Green
"Prayers never bring anything... They may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, the ignorant, the aboriginal, and the lazy - but to the enlightened it is the same as asking Santa Claus to bring you something for Xmas "
- W.C.Fields
"My own view of religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race."
- Bertrand Russell
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
- Bertrand Russell
"Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity"
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"If Atheism is a religion, then health is a disease!"
- Clark Adams
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy."
- David Brooks
"'Faith' means the will to avoid knowing what is true."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means."
- George Bernard Shaw
"People think that epilepsy is divine simply because they don't have any idea what causes epilepsy. But I believe that someday we will understand what causes epilepsy, and at that moment, we will cease to believe that it's divine. And so it is with everything in the universe."
- Hippocrates, 5th century
"Why," they say to me, "suppose [our religion] should turn out to be true, and you should come to the day of Judgment and find all these things to be true. What would you do then?"
I would walk up like a man, and say, "I was mistaken."
"And suppose God was about to pass judgment upon you, what would you say?"
I would say to him: "Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." Why not? I am told that I must render good for evil. I am told that if smitten on one cheek I must turn the other. I am told that I must overcome evil with good. I am told that I must love my enemies; and will it do for this God who tells me to love my enemies to damn his? No, it will not do. It will not do."
- Robert Green Ingersoll
"Theology is but the ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system."
- Baron Paul Henri T. d'Holbach
"It occurred to me many years ago that religion begins just beyond the frontier of science – that any phenomenon adequately explained by the scientific method is thereby removed from the domain of faith. We don't believe in the solar system on faith; we know it as fact. Even priests – now – accept it as such. Religion therefore represents the sum total of our ignorance, and God is the personification of that ignorance.
Intelligent design is not an explanation. It is an attempt to capitalize on our lack of total knowledge regarding evolution. The basic thesis is this: "The complexity of the universe cannot be explained except in terms of an Intelligent Designer..." The truth is, it has not yet been explained by science. Once again, an appeal to ignorance is proof of a matter of faith."
-Jay B. Spry
"You are never dedicated to do something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt."
- Robert M. Pirsig, "Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
"Intelligent design is not an argument of the same character as these controversies. It is not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one. It might be worth discussing in a class on the history of ideas, in a philosophy class on popular logical fallacies, or in a comparative religion class on origin myths from around the world. But it no more belongs in a biology class than alchemy belongs in a chemistry class, phlogiston in a physics class or the stork theory in a sex education class. In those cases, the demand for equal time for "both theories" would be ludicrous. Similarly, in a class on 20th-century European history, who would demand equal time for the theory that the Holocaust never happened?"
www.randi.org/jr/200509/090905these.html
70839749
3825
"One doesn't need Moses and the Ten Commandments to know that murder is wrong. The golden rule was understood in even the most rudimentary of societies long before it was enunciated by Jesus. Morality is not a shopping list of rules handed down from on high; it is the product of reason. It's all the rules about what to wear on your head and whether or not we can eat pigs I don't get."
-John Moore
"God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be tortured for eternity in hell. That's not free will. It's like a man telling his girlfriend, do what you wish, but if you choose to leave me, I will track you down and blow your brains out. When a man says this we call him a psychopath. When god says the same we call him "loving" and build churches in his honor."
-- William C. Easttom II
"The fundamental core of contemporary Darwinism, the theory of DNA-based reproduction and evolution, is now beyond dispute among scientists. It demonstrates its power every day, contributing crucially to the explanation of planet-sized facts of geology and meteorology, through middle-sized facts of ecology and agronomy, down to the latest microscopic facts of genetic engineering. It unifies all of biology and the history of our planet into a single grand story. Like Gulliver tied down in Lilliput, it is unbudgeable, not because of some one or two huge chains of argument that might -- hope against hope -- have weak links in them, but because it is securely tied by thousands of threads of evidence anchoring it to virtually every other area of human knowledge." - Daniel Dennett
youtube.com/watch?v=w4fQA9mt-Mg
www.cafepress.com/irreligion
forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=60509
nodeity.com/#default
www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell2.htm
forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=64439
Philosophy for children:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Lipman
Notice: I am on hiatus from Allpoetry for the time being. I have not died, I am simply uninspired poetically and am going through some pretty turbulent times dealing with numerous issues, healthwise, socially, academically, etc.; I shall return eventually, though as of now my leave is indefinite.
"My conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true. Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity."
-- Bertrand Russell
"Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight to heaven."
-- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
AIM SN: Glacian723
Yahoo SN: akshel723
Email/MSN Messenger/Myspace: g!lacianmaelstrom@hotmail.com (Take out the
!')
Hello! Welcome to my poetry page. Here you'll find the works of ... Me. Occasionally, people who know me ask why I use "Glacian" online all the time. It's not really very interesting. I chose the name from an old book, "The Thran" (he's some loser who dies in the book), and it stuck.
My poetry here consists of some of the earlier writings I did, along with my more recent stuff, which mostly focuses on my feelings about the distance put between myself and "Faith". A long time ago, I believed in God, along with many other superstitions, like the whole buzz about aliens and UFO's. Time and experience brought me from a credulous "believer" into a skeptic. My turn from spirituality brought me through the study of other religions, and for a brief time I held quasi-spiritual pantheistic views, mixing some Eastern philosophy into my views. I decided that all religions really had the "same underlying message". A few months later, I discovered that their underlying message was bullshit, and concluded that all religion is bunk. I am now of the opinion that religion is what I'd call a "mind virus", a delusion that persists in far too many minds, and that all religion, for teaching falsities and superstitions, denying one the ability to think rationally, at least concerning the validity of the religious tenets themselves, and undermining human creativity and individuality by perpetuating an ideal in the normalmensch - a gaping hole of mediocrity to which human beings aspire, a single set of ideals that all are recommended to aspire to, rather than each individual walking their own path and finding their own truth. That being said, I regard religion with contempt and believe that through the light of reason, science, education, and rational thought we as a human race can expel nonsense, not only in the form of ESP, psychic powers, and belief in ghosts, but in the superstitions and dogmas of religions as well.
To the religious person who may say they pity me for "Believing in nothing" I say this: I believe in the universe. I believe in humanity. I believe in the power of the mind, and the resilience of the human spirit to overcome adversity. I believe in freedom, both from human bondage in the form of slavery and in the form of mental bondage to dogmas, doctrines, and paradigms. I believe in love, and I believe in life. But most of all, I believe in myself.
I've taken up as a rather militant atheist. I quickly went through the transition of a confused and doubting agnostic to an atheist to a stronger version - a positive atheist. Yes, I suppose I'm one of those rare breeds who denies the existence of God. I won't get into my defense of positive atheism here, but I will ask believers this: do you believe that Santa Claus exists? If not, proceed to this next question: Do you supsend judgment about his existence, shrug your shoulders, and say "I just don't know if he exists or not" or are you reasonably certain that Santa Claus does not exist? Think about it. I don't claim to know that no god of any kind at all exists. What I do know is this: Many organized religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism contain logical absurdities, and all-too-often gods with contradictory or impossible features. I know square circles do not exist. Likewise, I know that gods with contradictory properties also do not exist. To date, nobody has given me an intelligible and meaningful definition of God. That being said, I regard almost any person saying "God" as either uttering nonsense or uttering absurdity. I deny the existence of logical impossibilities and consider this position justified, and as for nonsense - well, I don't need to deny that...it's nonsense. So, in most cases, I take the non-cognitivist approach and consider "God" to be an vacuous word that means basically nothing. If you have a definition of God, I'd be happy to hear it. If it is intelligible and meaningful, I'd be happy to see you offer proof that it exists. Don't be surprised, however, if I disagree that "God is love" or "God is nature". That's baloney, and about as meaningful as my insisting God is a ham sandwich (and to some starving Africans, he may very well be.)
If you want to get to know me or contact for whatever reason, I'm available. I'm not the busiest person in the world.
Here on my author page I have a ton of quotes from various infidels and heathens, enjoy:
"The church still wonders why any Infidel should be wicked enough to endeavor to destroy her power.
I will tell the church why.
You have imprisoned the human mind; you have been the enemy of liberty; you have burned us at the stake -- wasted us upon slow fires -- torn our flesh with iron; you have covered us with chains -- treated us as outcasts; you have filled the world with fear; you have taken our wives and children from our arms; you have confiscated our property; you have denied us the right to testify in courts of justice; you have branded us with infamy; you have torn out our tongues; you have refused us burial. In the name of your religion, you have robbed us of every right; and after having inflicted upon us every evil that can be inflicted in this world, you have fallen upon your knees, and with clasped hands implored your God to torment us forever.
Can you wonder that we hate your doctrines -- that we despise your creeds -- that we feel proud to know that we are beyond your power -- that we are free in spite of you -- that we can express our honest thought, and that the whole world is grandly rising into the blessed light? Can you wonder that we point with pride to the fact that Infidelity has ever been found battling for the rights of man, for the liberty of conscience, and for the happiness of all? Can you wonder that we are proud to know that we have always been disciples of Reason, and soldiers of Freedom; that we have denounced tyranny and superstition, and have kept our hands unstained with human blood?"
--Robert Green Ingersoll
"Dear idiot.
Read authors comments. Also, remember that respecting all religions (esp the ones with records of peacefulness) is important."
-pozo, showing his deep respect for my beliefs by calling me an idiot, January 27th
I don't know what religion with "records of peacefulness" pozo is referring to, but if it's Christianity, then that must be an entirely sarcastic remark.
My initial question, which I will ask here, in case anyone would like to answer it for me was thus: "I have a question. Why should I respect a Christian's beliefs? Last time I checked, respect wasn't obligatory. If anything, I've found Christian beliefs to be ridiculous and irrational enough to warrant a complete lack of my respect; so, quite on the contrary, if you are claiming that you are a Christian (i.e., that at the very least, you believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ) then, at least as it pertains to your religious beliefs, I do not respect them, nor can anyone expect or compel me to. I do not respect Christian beliefs for the same reason that I do not respect racist, sexist, or irrational beliefs, and for the same reason that I do not respect someone's belief in astrology or Nazism...the reason being that I find these beliefs unjustified and irrational."
This is not meant to harass or discriminate against anyone. I'm not claiming that I will use this site or that I even necessarily believe in ridiculing or insulting others, but merely that there are certain views I do not respect; this is one of them, and despite it's popularity, nobody can compel me to respect someone else's views. Tolerate them, yes, but it would be as unfair a practice to demand respect for a belief as it would be to demand that one shares that belief. It's a violation of one's basic freedom to think for themselves and to freely express those thoughts.
Following this, I will share with you some quotes from H. L. Mencken and Richard Dawkins,
"Society bends over backward to be accommodating to religious sensibilities but not to other kinds of sensibilities. If I say something offensive to religious people, I'll be universally censured, including by many atheists. But if I say something insulting about Democrats or Republicans or the Green Party, one is allowed to get away with that. Hiding behind the smoke screen of untouchability is something religions have been allowed to get away with for too long."
- Richard Dawkins
"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy -- ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness -- that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what -- at last -- I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me."
- Bertrand Russell
"The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history."
-Robert Heinlein
“I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking. I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious. I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty... I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect. I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech... I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run. I believe in the reality of progress. I - But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.”
- H. L. Mencken
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: "I am looking for God! I am looking for God!"
As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.
"Where has God gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto."
Here the madman fell silent and again regarded his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time has not come yet. The tremendous event is still on its way, still travelling - it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves."
It has been further related that on that same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang a requiem. Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: "what are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of God?"
-The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche
"Look back at the eternity that passed before we were born and mark how utterly it counts to us as nothing. This is a mirror that nature holds up to us, in which we may see the time that shall be after we are dead. Is there anything terrifying in the sight - anything depressing - anything that is not more restful than the soundest sleep?"
- Lucretius
*Links*
atheistempire.com/main.html
www.randi.org/
www.infidelguy.com/
www.infidels.org/news/atheism/
www.sierratel.com/evildave/
www.sierratel.com/evildave/Gods.html
www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell3.htm
atheism.about.com/library/weekly/aa042600a.htm
www.infidels.org/news/atheism/media.html
freethought.freeservers.com/index.html
freethought.freeservers.com/reason/quotes.html
www.atheistempire.com/greatminds/index.html
www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/nogod/
*Quotes*
"Irreverence is the champion of liberty."
- Mark Twain
Gott ist tot: aber so wie die Art der Menschen ist, wird es vielleicht
noch jahrtausendlang Hohlen geben, in denen man seinen Schatten zeigt.
(God is dead: but considering the state Man is in, there will perhaps
be caves, for ages yet, in which his shadow will be shown.)
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."
- Thomas Paine
"These religions teach the slave virtues. They make inanimate things holy, and falsehoods sacred. They create artificial crimes. To eat meat on Friday, to enjoy yourself on Sunday, to eat on fast-days, to be happy in Lent, to dispute a priest, to ask for evidence, to deny a creed, to express your sincere thought, all these acts are sins, crimes against some god. To give your honest opinion about Jehovah, Mohammed or Christ, is far worse than to maliciously slander your neighbor. To question or doubt miracles is far worse than to deny known facts. Only the obedient, the credulous, the cringers, the kneelers, the meek, the unquestioning, the true believers, are regarded as moral, as virtuous. It is not enough to be honest, generous and useful; not enough to be governed by evidence, by facts. In addition to this, you must believe. These things are the foes of morality. They subvert all natural conceptions of virtue."
- Robert Ingersoll
"As far as I can determine, God is an abstract noun that refers to the general set of singularities resulting from any process of extrapolation based on incomplete information."
- Mark Thompson
"Our civilization is not Christian. It does not come from the skies. It is not a result of "inspiration." It is the child of invention, of discovery, of applied knowledge -- that is to say, of science. When man becomes great and grand enough to admit that all have equal rights; when thought is untrammeled; when worship shall consist in doing useful things; when religion means the discharge of obligations to our fellow-men, then, and not until then, will the world be civilized."
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "Reply To The Indianapolis Clergy" The Iconoclast, Indianapolis, Indiana (1882
"Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
- Steven Weinberg
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent... To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today... If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul."
- Isaac Asimov
A poor idea well written is more likely to be accepted than a good idea poorly written. Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
-- Isaac Asimov
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
- Voltaire
"Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do."
- Voltaire
"Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand."
- Mark Twain
"Most people can't bear to sit in church for an hour on Sundays. How are they supposed to live somewhere very similar to it for eternity?"
- Mark Twain
"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are serviley crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blind faith."
- Thomas Jefferson
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."
- Benjamin Franklin
"The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ."
- Thomas Jefferson
"Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world."
- Voltaire
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize [hu]mankind."
- Thomas Paine
"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
- Thomas Paine
"Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity [of opinion]. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites."
- Thomas Jefferson
"When I became convinced that the Universe is natural that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world, not even in infinite space. I was free.
free to think, to express my thoughts
free to live to my own ideal
free to live for myself and those I loved
free to use all my faculties, all my senses
free to spread imagination's wings
free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope
free to judge and determine for myself
free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past
free from popes and priests
free from all the "called" and "set apart"
free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies
free from the fear of eternal pain
free from the winged monsters of night
free from devils, ghosts, and gods
For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of my thought, no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings
no chains for my limbs
no lashes for my back
no fires for my flesh
no master's frown or threat
no following another's steps
no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words.
I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds. And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain for the freedom of labor and thought
to those who fell on the fierce fields of war
to those who died in dungeons bound with chains
to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs
to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn
to those by fire consumed
to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men.
And I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still."
- Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899), "Why Am I An Agnostic?", 1896
"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity."
- John Adams
"Blasphemy? No, it is not blasphemy. If God is as vast as that, he is above blasphemy; if He is as little as that, He is beneath it."
- Mark Twain
"it is believed by everyone that when he was in heaven he was stern, hard, resentful, jealous and cruel, but that when he came down to earth, he became the opposite... sweet, gentle merciful, forgiving. He was a thousand billion times crueler than ever he was in the Old Testament... Meek and gentle? By and by we will examine that popular sarcasm by the light of the hell which he invented."
- Mark Twain, in "Letters from the Earth"
"There is nothing in either savage or civilized history that is more utterly complete, more remorselessly sweeping than the Father of Mercy's campaign among the Midianites. The official report deals only in masses, all the virgins, all the men, all the babies. all 'creatures that breathe,' all houses. all cities. It gives you just one vast picture ...as far as the eye can reach, of charred ruins and storm-swept desolation... Would you expect this same conscienceless God, this moral bankrupt, to become a teacher of morals, of gentleness, of meekness, of righteousness, of purity?"
- Mark Twain, "Letters from Earth"
"The founder of a religion must be able to turn water into wine -- cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a simple touch the dead to life. It was necessary for him to demonstrate to the satisfaction of his barbarian disciple, that he was superior to nature. In times of ignorance this was easy to do. The credulity of the savage was almost boundless. To him the marvelous was the beautiful, the mysterious was the sublime. Consequently, every religion has for its foundation a miracle -- that is to say, a violation of nature -- that is to say, a falsehood.
No one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of a miracle. Nothing but falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until one is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power superior to, and independent of, nature."
- Robert Green Ingersoll, "The Gods" (1872)
"Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus."
- Thomas Jefferson
"I cannot accept any concept of God based on the fear of life or the fear of death or blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him I would be a liar."
- Albert Einstein
"I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
- Albert Einstein
"The star that shines above the dawn, the herald of the day, is Science, not superstition; Reason, not religion."
- Robert Ingersoll
"My objection to Christianity is that it is infinitely cruel, infinitely selfish, and, I might add, infinitely absurd."
- Robert Ingersoll
"Hands that help are far better than lips that pray."
- Robert Ingersoll
"Religion prevents our children from having a rational education; religion prevents us from removing the fundamental causes of war; religion prevents us from teaching the ethic of scientific cooperation in place of the old fierce doctrines of sin and punishment. It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion."
- Bertrand Russell
"I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous enough, or secret, subterranean and small enough - I call it the one immortal blemish upon the human race."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"The Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is, the principal enemy of moral progress in the world"
- Bertrand Russell
"We may define "faith" as the firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of "faith." We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. The substitution of emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife, since different groups, substitute different emotions."
- Bertrand Russell
"Why should I allow that same God to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown His own?"
- Robert Ingersoll
"It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane."
- Richard Dawkins
"As to the book called the Bible, it is blasphemy to call it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions and a history of bad times and bad men."
- Thomas Paine
"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets"
- Voltaire
“A great error is more easily propagated, than a great truth, because it is easier to believe, than to reason, and because people prefer the marvels of romances to the simplicity of history.”
- Charles François Dupuis
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
- Stephen Roberts
"Only the fool says in his heart: There is no god -- The wise says it to the world"
"The Bible is a mass of fables and traditions, mere mythology."
- Mark Twain
"Out of all of the sects of the world, we notice an uncanny coincidence: the overwhelming majority just happen to choose one that their parents' belong to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favour, the best miracles, the best music: when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing, compared to the matter of heredity. This is an unmistakable fact; nobody could seriously deny it. Yet people with full knowledge of the arbitrary nature of this heredity, somehow manage to go on believing in *their* religion, often with such fanaticism that they are prepared to murder people who follow a different one."
- Richard Dawkins
"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."
- Richard Dawkins
"Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons."
-Bertrand Russell
"Religion I found to be without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, serves principally to divide us and make us unfriendly to one another."
- Benjamin Franklin
"When a man ceases to believe in god, he does not believe in nothing. He believes in everything."
- G.K. Chesterson
"The alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short circuit destroying the mind."
- Ayn Rand
"If God has spoken, why is the world not convinced."
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
"Any belief worth having must survive doubt."
"God is an invention of Man. So the nature of God is only a shallow mystery. The deep mystery is the nature of Man."
- Nanrei Kobori
"What was it that Adam ate that he wasn't supposed to eat? It wasn't just an apple. It was the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The subtle message? 'Get smart and I'll fuck you over' sayeth the Lord. God is the smartest, and he doesn't want any Competition. Is this not an absolutely anti-intellectual religion?"
- Frank Zappa
"Could a being create the fifty billion galaxies, each with two hundred billion stars, then rejoice in the smell of burning goat flesh?"
- Ron Patterson
Matthew 10:32-38
"Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me."
"The 'establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment means at least this: neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion." U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, majority opinion; Everson v. Board of Education 330 U.S. 1 (1947) 7
"Which is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's?"
- Nietzsche
"If we go back to the beginnings of things, we shall always find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that imagination, rapture and deception embellished them; that weakness worships them; that custom spares them; and that tyranny favors them in order to profit from the blindness of men."
- Paul-Henri, baron d'Holbach
"There is not sufficient love and goodness in the world to permit us to give some of it away to imaginary beings."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable."
- Henry Louis Mencken
"There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as The Dark Ages."
- Ruth Hurmence Green
"Prayers never bring anything... They may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, the ignorant, the aboriginal, and the lazy - but to the enlightened it is the same as asking Santa Claus to bring you something for Xmas "
- W.C.Fields
"My own view of religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race."
- Bertrand Russell
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
- Bertrand Russell
"Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity"
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"If Atheism is a religion, then health is a disease!"
- Clark Adams
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy."
- David Brooks
"'Faith' means the will to avoid knowing what is true."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means."
- George Bernard Shaw
"People think that epilepsy is divine simply because they don't have any idea what causes epilepsy. But I believe that someday we will understand what causes epilepsy, and at that moment, we will cease to believe that it's divine. And so it is with everything in the universe."
- Hippocrates, 5th century
"Why," they say to me, "suppose [our religion] should turn out to be true, and you should come to the day of Judgment and find all these things to be true. What would you do then?"
I would walk up like a man, and say, "I was mistaken."
"And suppose God was about to pass judgment upon you, what would you say?"
I would say to him: "Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." Why not? I am told that I must render good for evil. I am told that if smitten on one cheek I must turn the other. I am told that I must overcome evil with good. I am told that I must love my enemies; and will it do for this God who tells me to love my enemies to damn his? No, it will not do. It will not do."
- Robert Green Ingersoll
"Theology is but the ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system."
- Baron Paul Henri T. d'Holbach
"It occurred to me many years ago that religion begins just beyond the frontier of science – that any phenomenon adequately explained by the scientific method is thereby removed from the domain of faith. We don't believe in the solar system on faith; we know it as fact. Even priests – now – accept it as such. Religion therefore represents the sum total of our ignorance, and God is the personification of that ignorance.
Intelligent design is not an explanation. It is an attempt to capitalize on our lack of total knowledge regarding evolution. The basic thesis is this: "The complexity of the universe cannot be explained except in terms of an Intelligent Designer..." The truth is, it has not yet been explained by science. Once again, an appeal to ignorance is proof of a matter of faith."
-Jay B. Spry
"You are never dedicated to do something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt."
- Robert M. Pirsig, "Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
"Intelligent design is not an argument of the same character as these controversies. It is not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one. It might be worth discussing in a class on the history of ideas, in a philosophy class on popular logical fallacies, or in a comparative religion class on origin myths from around the world. But it no more belongs in a biology class than alchemy belongs in a chemistry class, phlogiston in a physics class or the stork theory in a sex education class. In those cases, the demand for equal time for "both theories" would be ludicrous. Similarly, in a class on 20th-century European history, who would demand equal time for the theory that the Holocaust never happened?"
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bookworm987 on August 25"do you believe that Santa Claus exists? If not, proceed to this next question: Do you supsend judgment about his existence, shrug your shoulders, and say "I just don't know if he exists or not" or are you reasonably certain that Santa Claus does not exist? Think about it. I don't claim to know that no god of any kind at all exists. What I do know is this: Many organized religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism contain logical absurdities, and all-too-often gods with contradictory or impossible features. I know square circles do not exist. Likewise, I know that gods with contradictory properties also do not exist."
-not for nothing, but to me, you kind of just contradicted the meaning of the term atheist. If you "don't claim to know that no God of any kind at all exists", then you are not an atheist, you are agnostic. To me, it sounds like you just don't accept the teaching of God in any man-made religion. you do not accept what Christianity or Islam or anyone else defines God as, or what they say he stands for, or how he regards us. So, to me, you are sending mixed signals....you are not an atheist, you are just someone searching for your own personal God.
Guess what? No two definitions of God are the same. He is personal, different things to different people. He is whatever you need Him to be at any given moment. Just as two people can watch a basketball game and relay different parts of the game due to what stuck out in their minds, God holds truth for one man in one way, and truth for another man in a totally different way. -
dp robertson on March 17, 2008This has to be one of the most interesting front pages on this site
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Xelgaroth on August 14, 2007I didn't say to give up doing things simply because they will be of no consequence in the end. I said they were insubstantial, not meaningless.
My substantiation for my statement that the atheist "community" are as a whole arrogant and dogmatic is my personal testimony. No, personal testimony is not the best evidence, this is true, but if you like I could round up a great large many Christians who could attest to the same situation of being insulted for their religion. I'm certainly not denying that religious people do the same to atheists, but simply pointing out that there are many atheists who do this as well. Perhaps they are not so-called "militant" atheists, but there are many atheists who on most other occasions would keep silent but when someone mentions their Christianity they laugh or scoff or otherwise insult them for it.
All the same, it really doesn't matter; it's just frivolous finger-pointing.
"To an extent, but in the same way we oppose nazis, we oppose nazism, correct? We oppose not only the members, but the ideology, and ultimately it is the ideology – an ideology crafted by people – that we regard as the evil."
We opposed Nazism as an idea not for its own sake but rather because the nazis followed nazism and eliminating nazism would get rid of the evil faster than just eradicating the nazis altogether would. Even so, the ultimate purpose is once again to get rid of the people. The idea by itself is just an idea. I'm certainly not saying Nazism is a good idea; it was horrid and heinous. But nazis murdered the Jews. We set to eliminate nazism as an idea not for the sake of eliminating the idea itself, but the subsequent elimination of its followers. You oppose Christianity for the sake of getting rid of Christianity.
Incidentally, you say that it [religion] hijacks reason and logic and whatnot. But aren't logic and reason just means to an end? Is the end not happiness? Do we not advance and progress ourselves technologically and such not for the sake of doing so, but because we believe that it will bring us happniness? So is religion just another means to the same end? One man seeks progress because he feels it will make him happy. Another man seeks God because he feels it will make him happy. What difference does it make? Religion is a means to an end, the end being happiness. Its constituents make up silly rules and traditions that have nothing to do with the actual purpose of the religion, but that is the fault of the followers, not the religion.
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Glacian on July 24, 2007
I don’t think God is science to religious believers. Science isn’t the conclusions we draw, but the method for acquiring those conclusions. God may be the metaphysical framework for reality to religious people, but without an understanding of the methodology of science, the religious person has no science.
Pastors and priests do not offer hypotheses in the same way scientists do. Scientists move from the known – they start with what knowledge we do have of nature – and move into the unknown, by making plausible inductions based on prior experience. Religious explanations, on the other hand, stem from wishful thinking, imagination, tradition, misunderstanding, and otherwise is not arrived at through any systematic, objective methodology.
You are right that there is a similarity, but I think that similarity can be confined simply to what phenomenon religious explanations and scientific explanations are trying to explain. The difference is that science offers a plausible, rational, and causally coherent explanation whereas religious explanations make appeals to ignorance, tradition, and magic just-so stories.
“For instance, while launching spaceships into orbit is a fantastic and amazing acheivement, in the end, will it really matter? God or no, at the end of the human race no one will care that someone flew into space.”
Do you care? If not, why do you feed yourself? Why do you clothe yourself? It’s very easy to say that, in principle, nothing will matter, but for all practical consideration it matters to each and every one of us each and every day. I don’t think that’s going to change. That our ultimate fate is probably to be forgotten to oblivion does not justify, in my mind, completely giving up on doing anything. For one thing, I will no longer exist long before that time ever comes, so you could very well ask an atheist why they bother to do anything if at some point they’re not going to exist. I’d have to ask just why immortality and everlasting existence gives something more meaning. If anything, the fleetingness ought to give it all the more value.
“In reference to the arrogance and dogmatism, I wasn't directly referring to YOU, more rather the atheistic community as a whole.”
I find this statement to be unsubstantiated and probably false I don’t find the atheistic community as a whole to be a bit arrogant, and certainly not dogmatic. I’m not even sure there is an “atheist community” so much as there are places where some atheists get together. Atheists, especially the more outspoken kind, are usually some of the most independent thinkers of anyone; they are not inclined towards cliquishness or dogmatism.
“They decry and belittle any and every religious establishment unmercifully and many with no respect at all for the religion.”
That may be so, but that doesn’t make then arrogant or dogmatic. Also, most atheists probably don’t engage in this behavior because most atheists are not activists for the cause of atheism. Many people simply don’t believe, and don’t make an issue of it; that many is probably the vast majority. You’ve got somewhere around 4-10% of the U.S. are nonbelievers, but American Atheists, for instance, has a membership of just a few thousand.
You should know that personal testimony is not the best evidence for an assertion. In any case, I don’t doubt that you’ve ran into rude atheists who have insulted you. What do you make of this? I don’t see how it has any bearing on whether or not God exists, nor on the validity of atheism. The only thing it bears on is the fact that the wider appeal of atheism these days is reaching some people who aren’t the most reflective, reserved, and nicest of sorts. Also keep in mind that many atheists “back then” were likely nice, thoughtful, and polite because voicing their atheism was not an option. Consider the reaction to someone calling people stupid idiots for believing in God hundreds of years ago. They’d quickly find themselves ostracized or executed.
“I also think that many, not all, but many times you have confused the religion with its followers.”
I don’t think so. I specifically am against religion itself; as I find it hijacks the thought processes of the followers and is therefore ultimately responsible for their behavior.
“True christianity doesn't outright preach that we should force our children to believe what we say or to accept what the elders say without question.”
“True Christianity” (Trademark of Jesus, Inc.) has never been identified. Your claim to know True Christianity is no more valid than anyone else’s.
“Christianity never says they should impose themselves into politics, Christianity as a religion doesn't say these things.”
Even if that were so, “Christianity” has never been a singular entity. It is obvious that for some people, it is not particularly harmful, and for others it is, and for yet others it is harmful not only to themselves but to everyone else as well. I’m not after “True Christianity”; because I don’t think it exists. I’m after the underlying ignorance, superstition, and theism that makes the backbone for the entire enterprise of mental self-abuse and willful ignorance that is religion.
“There is no verse in the bible that says we should invade their countries and force them to convert to Christ or die.”
The Old Testament is quite explicit that for Jews, that is precisely what they ought to be doing. Jesus said he came to fulfill the laws of the Jews, and is the very same god, supposedly, who ordered these things…
“It was the misguided beliefs of the PEOPLE that began them.”
Of course it was people. It certainly wasn’t God, because the Christian God doesn’t exist. It had to have been people – people crafted the religion, which in turn shaped and crafted the minds of more people. It is a vicious cycle, but that cycle persists through the coevolution of the mindless entity of the religion itself and the people who drive that evolution; the people are flagbearers for the ideas. Do they bear responsibility? To an extent, but in the same way we oppose nazis, we oppose nazism, correct? We oppose not only the members, but the ideology, and ultimately it is the ideology – an ideology crafted by people – that we regard as the evil. Yes, they rely on one another, but it is the ideas that are more dangerous than their individual bearers.
“It was not Christianity that slaughtered the muslims, but rather the Christians themselves.”
What are Christians without Christianity? It was both, and Christianity is responsible. Those people never would have committed those acts if Jesus hadn’t approved – in their minds, at least. But then again, the only approval I believe anyone ever gets from Jesus is a delusion, positive or negative.
“Jesus never said to go outside with signs declaring that the sinners must repent because the end is near.”
No, but neither did he say to wear your seatbelts. The Bible doesn’t lay out exactly what you should and shouldn’t do – as much as Christians like to pretend it’s a guide that can be applied to every aspect of life, it can only do so when stretched beyond its means. Christians have to run with their ideas sometimes, and likely suppose that Jesus would approve.
If religion doesn’t cause suffering, but its followers do, then what good is religion? If it cannot change the overall morality of its adherents by a single iota, then Christians certainly have no moral claim on atheists. Indeed, they don’t. No studies have shown that Christians are more moral than atheists.
I don’t like your analogy to LoTR, as I think it is a false analogy. Unlike Tolkien, religion is user-driven. It doesn’t stand on its own, but must be interpreted. The Bible in itself is not the religion, but the rituals, behaviors, practices, and beliefs that manifest themselves in a community, when drawn from the Bible, are a particular sect of religion; is “The Bible” itself responsible for these peoples actions? No; but the whole notion of religion IS. The whole notion that there is a God, etc. etc.; it is these ideas themselves that lead to the problems we face…through the individuals; people are thus the vessels for what I consider “the bad idea of religion”.
As an example, consider racism. Obviously we can’t hold racism accountable for racism, we hold individuals accountable for it. But the root of the problem is not individuals themselves but racism itself; if we wanted to remove this form of hate, we wouldn’t remove racists, we’d remove racism, we’d undercut the notion that there is any inherent difference in value as a human being between different races. We would both probably agree that racists are ignorant of the fact that members of other races cannot be unilaterally inferior or somehow worse than members of one’s own race. Consider that these people are likely this way due to their upbringing. In much the same way, what religion we have is a product of our upbringing, and like racism, it is a part of our local culture and community; the values and behaviors we are likely to exhibit are largely a product of our environment, so people can, in a way, be seen as “victims of circumstance”. You wouldn’t heap all the blame on a starving child in Africa for being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps neither should we say that the religious person is entirely responsible for their behavior and beliefs any more than we hold racists or poor people accountable for their behaviors, beliefs, and circumstances. This is, perhaps, a case of you blaming the victims.
After all, If religion is a disease, its followers are the victims.
