Atheist 'Bible' Anthology

[piccione]

Basic Principles of Objectivism (by Nathaniel Branden)

[Let us examine the concept of god and observe some of its striking
implications for man's consciousness.

1. To begin with, those who profess to believe in god are unable to identify or communicate intelligibly what it is that they believe in. What is the nature, the identity of god? What is the meaning of the concept? "God is something'" they say, "only I don't know what it is." They claim to believe in it nevertheless. No philosophy, theology or religion has ever given a rationally intelligible definition or even description of the nature of god, or any intelligible content to the concept god. Observe that I said "intelligible." A great many descriptions have been offered and a great many attributes have been ascribed to god but they are of a kind that represent a negation and a mockery of man's consciousness as well as of everything known
to him in reason about the nature of reality.
For instance: "God" claim the mystics, "is infinite." What does it mean to be infinite? It means to possess no limits. To possess no specific determinate finite number of attributes--no specific particular identifiable qualities. It means to be nothing in particular. But to be nothing in particular is not to
be. To assert that an infinite being exists is to assert that something can exist that possesses no identity. To accept the existence of a being who possesses no identity one has to reject the Law of Identity. But to reject the Law of Identity is to reject the total of one's grasp of reality. Thus the concept of an infinite god is the destruction of man's concept of existence, of being.

2. "God" claim the mystics, "is pure spirit" or "pure consciousness." What do they mean by spirit? Well, in rational terms the concept spirit is intelligible and simply means man's consciousness. Consciousness, in rational terms, means the faculty of awareness possessed by a specific material living entity. But this is not what the mystics mean. By "pure
spirit" they mean a non-material entity. And by "pure consciousness" they mean a faculty without any entity to which it belongs. What is a non-material entity? The mystics have no identification for it and no definition. No concept except the negation of man's concepts. Non-material means simply "non-anything you know." Spirit, in the mystics' terms, is not
something specific or identifiable. Its nature is precisely that it cannot be identified. It is not to be grasped by man. It is not merely different from matter, it is the metaphysical opposite of matter. It is that which matter is not. To grasp it you must reject everything which you do grasp and replace it with the concept of "that which is not what I grasp." In terms of man's consciousness, to grasp means to understand, to identify. The
definition of spirit offered by the mystics is in effect "that which is not to be identified by man." The same epistemological devastation is performed by the mystics' concept of pure consciousness. Man's concept of consciousness is a faculty belonging to a specific being who possesses specific means of awareness such as sense organs, nerves, a brain--which
make it possible for him to be aware of reality in the form of sensations, perceptions, conceptions. But the mystics' concept of pure consciousness is a faculty without an entity. A faculty that exists by itself and is conscious without any specific means of awareness. An action without an entity that acts. The action of an unlimited entity--unlimited by any specific means. This is not only the destruction of the Law of Identity but also the acceptance of the one epistemological method that destroys a
rational consciousness: the dropping of context. Logic, man's means of cognition, requires the preservation of the full context of every concept man forms. To accept the idea of a pure consciousness, man must drop the context, the meaning, the root of consciousness as he knows it and replace
it with the idea of a consciousness which is "not what I know or mean or grasp." Thus the doctrine of "god is pure consciousness" is the destruction of the concept of consciousness.

3. "God" claim the mystics, "is omnipotent." What does omnipotent mean? It means that god can do anything. Since the actions possible to an entity are determined by the nature of the entity that acts, for god to be unrestricted
in action, he would have to be unrestricted in identity. And this would mean that he possesses no identity. If god is omnipotent, not only does he possess no identity but neither does anything else possess identity. Think about that. God can do anything to any entity and he can make any entity do anything, regardless of the entity's nature. Which is tantamount to saying that the entity has no nature. Anything goes. Anything is possible. If miracles can happen, reality is fluid, arbitrary, unpredictable, unknowable.
A miracle is the rationally impossible. If god is omnipotent, contradictions have to be possible. This raises a number of questions the sole meaning of which is a mockery of man's reason. For example: it has been asked "Can god
tie a knot that he cannot untie?" or "Can god create a mountain that he cannot climb over?" The answer given by the mystics is "You must not try to understand, you must believe." You must believe that that which is inconceivable to you is possible. And that that which you do conceive of, such as specific identifiable entities, can be negated and dissolved by miracle at any moment. Thus the concept that god is omnipotent destroys the
Law of Identity and the Law of Causality.

4. "God" claim the mystics, "is omniscient." To be omniscient means to know everything: past, present and future. Observe that the attribute of omniscience is necessitated by the attribute of omnipotence. In order for god to be able to do anything, he would have to know everything. But observe also that the attributes of omnipotence and omniscience contradict each
other. In order for god to know everything, everything would have to be fated and predetermined. But if everything were fated and predetermined, it could not be changed. And if it could not be changed, this is a limitation on god's potency and he is not omnipotent. Here again the mystic will tell you "Don't think, don't examine, don't wonder, don't question--believe." The
concept of omniscience is the secret wish-fullfillment of every mystic. To acquire one's knowledge, by a process of struggle and effort, is abhorrent to the mystic. But to know everything, to know it instantaneously and without effort, to know it causelessly without any specific means of knowing it, or acquiring one's knowledge, or holding one's knowledge, this is the
mystics' passionate dream. The concept of omniscience is a psychological monument to the mystics' hatred of effort.

5. Finally, the mystics claim that "god is all-good." This means that he is incapable of evil. This poses a number of problems. The first is, if he is incapable of evil, how can he be omnipotent? Another problem: consider what is meant by the concept "Good." The concept of good or evil can pertain only to a being who has the power of choice. Morality applies only to entities who have a choice of action. If a robot were constructed for a certain job
which it would execute flawlessly because it was so designed by a scientist, you would not call it a virtuous robot. You would know that the robot has no power of choice and that it does only what it HAS to do. But if god is incapable of choosing evil, then he is as amoral as that robot. If god has no power to choose evil, if by nature he must always and automatically choose the good, then he is outside the concept of morality and his actions cannot be described as either good or evil. The doctrine of "god is all
good" creates an enormous problem which the mystics have never been able to solve. It is known as the Problem of Evil, and it consists of the question "If god is omnipotent and all-good, why does he allow evil to exist in the world?" The philosopher Epicurus expressed this problem thus: "Either god would remove evil out of this world and cannot, or he can and will not, or he has not the power nor will, or lastly he has both the power
and will. If he has the will and not the power, this shows weakness, which is contrary to the nature of god. If he has the power and not the will, it is malignity, and this is no less contrary to his nature. And if he is neither able nor willing he is both impotent and malignant and consequently cannot be god. And if he is both willing and able, which alone is consonant
with the nature of god, whence comes evil? Or why does he not prevent it?"
Theologians have been painfully aware of this problem and they have offered a number of answers. The most common answer is that man's limited intellect cannot grasp the mystery. That god in fact works for good purposes, but the purposes are of a kind which man's reason cannot grasp. So, if we see innocents slaughtered by the millions, and the seemingly evil prosper, and if it seems to us that we are witnessing something evil, why it
is only an illusion--it is not evil. By god's standards, it is good. If you see your loved ones being tortured and murdered, do not dare consider it evil, do not dare pass any moral judgment; it merely seems evil from your limited viewpoint. It serves a good end from god's viewpoint, which you cannot grasp and must not question. If god wills it to be so, who are you to call it evil or to protest? Thus the doctrine of "god is all good" is the destruction of morality. Observe that the mystics' answer to all the problems and contradictions in the concept of god is "Your mind cannot
conceive of it. If your mind cannot conceive of the irrational, the
contradictory, the senseless, the impossible, it is your mind that must take the blame."

6. The ultimate brain-killer is the mystics' claim that god is unknowable. Do not confuse the concept of unknowable with the concept of unknown. Unknown merely means something not known at present or not known to you. But unknowable means that which can never be known. That which by its nature
cannot be known. The most consistent theory of the mystics, pertaining to god as the unknowable, is that of a theological school known as negative theology. The negative theologians insist that one cannot possibly say what god is because to ascribe any attributes to him is to limit him, and this
amounts to an impertinence. One must not say that god is finite--that would limit him. One must not say that god is infinite--that would limit him also, since it forbids him to be finite. One must not say that he is all-good because that implies that he cannot be bad. One must not say that he is good AND bad, because that forbids the possibility of his being exclusively one. One must not say that he is omniscient, because that forbids the possibility
of his being fallible. One must not say that he is fallible because that forbids the possibility of his being omniscient.
Well, here in this theory you can observe the full, open and explicit meaning and purpose of the mystics' advocacy of faith in god: the hatred of man's mind and the desire to destroy it. To destroy all the cardinal concepts of man's reason. To destroy the base of man's consciousness, the Law of Identity. And to leave man groveling on his belly, as an abject idiot, cringing in terror at a nightmare apparition which he dares not identify as either real or unreal, knowable or unknowable.]

[Daz Madrigal]

And who is Nathaniel Brandon when he's at home?

He's nothing if not verbose. I think I may 'pass' on this one. it looks as if Nathaniel has far too much time on his hands and the majority of it wasted.

[Daz Madrigal]

Just a passing glance suggests the usual waffle over 'semantics'. You've read too much pseudo-intellectual crap by Sartre etc..Piccione.

Lots of nonsense about what is 'omniprescence' ?..'Spirit'?....'Soul'??

[piccione]

Is your post supposed to be a valuable contribution to the atheist bible Daz? I was hoping to do a better job than the 'original' bible authors and avoid such meaningless diversions and personal interpretations....

[Daz Madrigal]

Just keep posting, Piccione.

Your doin good, Man.

[piccione]

You ain't seen nothing yet....

[piccione]

Lots of nonsense about what is 'omniprescence' ?..'Spirit'?....'Soul'??

That's the /theists'/ argument. Load of b*ll*cks I agree.

But I'm glad you were tempted to 'glance through' after all...

[piccione]

About the Holy Bible (Robert G. Ingersoll, 1894)

[Somebody ought to tell the truth about the Bible. The preachers dare not, because they would be driven from their pulpits. Professors in colleges dare not, because they would lose their salaries. Politicians dare not. They would be defeated. Editors dare not. They would lose subscribers. Merchants dare not, because they might lose customers. Men of fashion dare not, fearing that they would lose caste. Even clerks dare not, because they might be discharged. And so I thought I would do it myself.

[…]

WHY SHOULD WE PLACE CHRIST AT THE TOP AND SUMMIT OF THE HUMAN RACE?

Was he kinder, more forgiving, more self-sacrificing than Buddha? Was he wiser, did he meet death with more perfect calmness, than Socrates? Was he more patient, more charitable, than Epictetus? Was he a greater philosopher, a deeper thinker, than Epicurus? In what respect was he the superior of Zoroaster? Was he gentler than Lao-tsze, more universal than Confucius? Were his ideas of human rights and duties superior to those of Zeno? Did he express grander truths than Cicero? Was his mind subtler than Spinoza's? Was his brain equal to Kepler's or Newton's? Was he grander in death -- a sublimer martyr than Bruno? Was he in intelligence, in the force and beauty of expression, in breadth and scope of thought, in wealth of illustration, in aptness of comparison, in knowledge of the human brain and heart, of all passions, hopes and fears, the equal of Shakespeare, the greatest of the human race?
If Christ was in fact God, he knew all the future. Before him like a panorama moved the history yet to be. He knew how his words would be interpreted. He knew what crimes, what horrors, what infamies, would be committed in his name. He knew that the hungry flames of persecution would climb around the limbs of countless martyrs. He knew that; thousands and thousands of brave men and women would languish in dungeons in darkness, filled with pain. He knew that his church would invent and use instruments of torture; that his followers would appeal to whip and fagot, to chain and rack. He saw the horizon of the future lurid with the flames of the auto da fe. He knew what creeds would spring like poisonous fungi from every text. He saw the ignorant sects waging war against each other. He saw thousands of men, under the orders of priests, building prisons for their fellow-men. He saw thousands of scaffolds dripping with the best and bravest blood. He saw his followers using the instruments of pain. He heard the groans -- saw the faces white with agony. He heard the shrieks and sobs and cries of all the moaning, martyred multitudes. He knew that commentaries would be written on his words with swords, to be read by the light of fagots. He knew that the Inquisition would be born of the teachings attributed to him.
He saw the interpolations and falsehoods that hypocrisy would write and tell. He saw all wars that would he waged, and he knew that above these fields of death, these dungeons, these rackings, these burnings, these executions, for a thousand years would float the dripping banner of the cross.
He knew that hypocrisy would be robed and crowned -- that cruelty and credulity would rule the world; knew that liberty would perish from the earth; knew that popes and kings in his name would enslave the souls and bodies of men; knew that they would persecute and destroy the discoverers, thinkers and inventors; knew that his church would extinguish reason's holy light and leave the world without a star.
He saw his disciples extinguishing the eyes of men, flaying them alive, cutting out their tongues, searching for all the nerves of pain.
He knew that in his name his followers would trade in human flesh; that cradles would be robbed and women's breasts unbabed for gold.
And yet he died with voiceless lips.
Why did he fail to speak? Why did he not tell his disciples, and through them the world: "You shall not burn, imprison and torture in my name. You shall not persecute your fellow-men."
Why did he not plainly say: "I am the Son of God," or, "I am God"? Why did he not explain the Trinity? Why did he not tell the mode of baptism that was pleasing to him? Why did he not write a creed? Why did he not break the chains of slaves? Why did he not say that the Old Testament was or was not the inspired word of God? Why did he not write the New Testament himself? Why did he leave his words to ignorance, hypocrisy and chance? Why did he not say something positive, definite and satisfactory about another world? Why did he not turn the tear-stained hope of heaven into the glad knowledge of another life? Why did he not tell us something of the rights of man, of the liberty of hand and brain?
Why did he go dumbly to his death, leaving the world to misery and to doubt?
I will tell you why. He was a man, and did not know.

THE REAL BIBLE.

For thousands of years men have been writing the real Bible, and it is being written from day to day, and it will never be finished while man has life. All the facts that we know, all the truly recorded events, all the discoveries and inventions, all the wonderful machines whose wheels and levers seem to think, all the poems, crystals from the brain, flowers from the heart, all the songs of love and joy, of smiles and tears, the great dramas of Imagination's world, the wondrous paintings, miracles of form and color, of light and shade, the marvelous marbles that seem to live and breathe, the secrets told by rock and star, by dust and flower, by rain and snow, by frost and flame, by winding stream and desert sand, by mountain range and billowed sea.
All the wisdom that lengthens and ennobles life, all that avoids or cures disease, or conquers pain -- all just and perfect laws and rules that guide and shape our lives, all thoughts that feed the flames of love the music that transfigures, enraptures and enthralls the victories of heart and brain, the miracles that hands have wrought, the deft and cunning hands of those who worked for wife and child, the histories of noble deeds, of brave and useful men, of faithful loving wives, of quenchless mother-love, of conflicts for the right, of sufferings for the truth, of all the best that all the men and women of the world have said, and thought and done through all the years.
These treasures of the heart and brain -- these are the Sacred Scriptures of the human race.]

[motorist]

The spectre of Pope Pius XII never having condemned the atrocities of the catholic Hitler has resurfaced again btw

Whoopsy!

The dispute revolves around a paragraph-long picture caption of Pius XII that was installed when the newly-designed Yad Vashem museum was opened in 2005. The previous Vatican ambassador sent a letter of complaint about the text a year ago and now Monsignor Franco has complained again.The text notes that Pius XII's reaction to the Holocaust is controversial and states: "When he was elected Pope in 1939, he shelved a letter against racism and anti-semitism that his predecessor had prepared. Even when reports about the murder of Jews reached the Vatican, the Pope did not protest either verbally or in writing." The description also says Pius XII chose not to sign a December 1942 Allied declaration condemning the extermination of Jews and did not intervene when Jews were being deported from Rome to Auschwitz.

[Daz Madrigal]

Interesting but Piccione is pissing on the wrong tree.

This stuff may be of interest to Eleora who shows a similar adeptness at the 'cut and paste' job but has little meaning to me..a humble Astrologer who has absolutely zero interest in changing the views of others.

[Daz Madrigal]

piccione said:

About the Holy Bible (Robert G. Ingersoll, 1894)

[Somebody ought to tell the truth about the Bible. The preachers dare not, because they would be driven from their pulpits. Professors in colleges dare not, because they would lose their salaries. Politicians dare not. They would be defeated. Editors dare not. They would lose subscribers. Merchants dare not, because they might lose customers. Men of fashion dare not, fearing that they would lose caste. Even clerks dare not, because they might be discharged. And so I thought I would do it myself.

[…]

WHY SHOULD WE PLACE CHRIST AT THE TOP AND SUMMIT OF THE HUMAN RACE?

Was he kinder, more forgiving, more self-sacrificing than Buddha? Was he wiser, did he meet death with more perfect calmness, than Socrates? Was he more patient, more charitable, than Epictetus? Was he a greater philosopher, a deeper thinker, than Epicurus? In what respect was he the superior of Zoroaster? Was he gentler than Lao-tsze, more universal than Confucius? Were his ideas of human rights and duties superior to those of Zeno? Did he express grander truths than Cicero? Was his mind subtler than Spinoza's? Was his brain equal to Kepler's or Newton's? Was he grander in death -- a sublimer martyr than Bruno? Was he in intelligence, in the force and beauty of expression, in breadth and scope of thought, in wealth of illustration, in aptness of comparison, in knowledge of the human brain and heart, of all passions, hopes and fears, the equal of Shakespeare, the greatest of the human race?
If Christ was in fact God, he knew all the future. Before him like a panorama moved the history yet to be. He knew how his words would be interpreted. He knew what crimes, what horrors, what infamies, would be committed in his name. He knew that the hungry flames of persecution would climb around the limbs of countless martyrs. He knew that; thousands and thousands of brave men and women would languish in dungeons in darkness, filled with pain. He knew that his church would invent and use instruments of torture; that his followers would appeal to whip and fagot, to chain and rack. He saw the horizon of the future lurid with the flames of the auto da fe. He knew what creeds would spring like poisonous fungi from every text. He saw the ignorant sects waging war against each other. He saw thousands of men, under the orders of priests, building prisons for their fellow-men. He saw thousands of scaffolds dripping with the best and bravest blood. He saw his followers using the instruments of pain. He heard the groans -- saw the faces white with agony. He heard the shrieks and sobs and cries of all the moaning, martyred multitudes. He knew that commentaries would be written on his words with swords, to be read by the light of fagots. He knew that the Inquisition would be born of the teachings attributed to him.
He saw the interpolations and falsehoods that hypocrisy would write and tell. He saw all wars that would he waged, and he knew that above these fields of death, these dungeons, these rackings, these burnings, these executions, for a thousand years would float the dripping banner of the cross.
He knew that hypocrisy would be robed and crowned -- that cruelty and credulity would rule the world; knew that liberty would perish from the earth; knew that popes and kings in his name would enslave the souls and bodies of men; knew that they would persecute and destroy the discoverers, thinkers and inventors; knew that his church would extinguish reason's holy light and leave the world without a star.
He saw his disciples extinguishing the eyes of men, flaying them alive, cutting out their tongues, searching for all the nerves of pain.
He knew that in his name his followers would trade in human flesh; that cradles would be robbed and women's breasts unbabed for gold.
And yet he died with voiceless lips.
Why did he fail to speak? Why did he not tell his disciples, and through them the world: "You shall not burn, imprison and torture in my name. You shall not persecute your fellow-men."
Why did he not plainly say: "I am the Son of God," or, "I am God"? Why did he not explain the Trinity? Why did he not tell the mode of baptism that was pleasing to him? Why did he not write a creed? Why did he not break the chains of slaves? Why did he not say that the Old Testament was or was not the inspired word of God? Why did he not write the New Testament himself? Why did he leave his words to ignorance, hypocrisy and chance? Why did he not say something positive, definite and satisfactory about another world? Why did he not turn the tear-stained hope of heaven into the glad knowledge of another life? Why did he not tell us something of the rights of man, of the liberty of hand and brain?
Why did he go dumbly to his death, leaving the world to misery and to doubt?
I will tell you why. He was a man, and did not know.

THE REAL BIBLE.

For thousands of years men have been writing the real Bible, and it is being written from day to day, and it will never be finished while man has life. All the facts that we know, all the truly recorded events, all the discoveries and inventions, all the wonderful machines whose wheels and levers seem to think, all the poems, crystals from the brain, flowers from the heart, all the songs of love and joy, of smiles and tears, the great dramas of Imagination's world, the wondrous paintings, miracles of form and color, of light and shade, the marvelous marbles that seem to live and breathe, the secrets told by rock and star, by dust and flower, by rain and snow, by frost and flame, by winding stream and desert sand, by mountain range and billowed sea.
All the wisdom that lengthens and ennobles life, all that avoids or cures disease, or conquers pain -- all just and perfect laws and rules that guide and shape our lives, all thoughts that feed the flames of love the music that transfigures, enraptures and enthralls the victories of heart and brain, the miracles that hands have wrought, the deft and cunning hands of those who worked for wife and child, the histories of noble deeds, of brave and useful men, of faithful loving wives, of quenchless mother-love, of conflicts for the right, of sufferings for the truth, of all the best that all the men and women of the world have said, and thought and done through all the years.
These treasures of the heart and brain -- these are the Sacred Scriptures of the human race.]

Now I like that a lot.

Again it would be better addressed to a Christian and no doubt once on is engaged we would hear of little else for the rest of Millennia. Good for post counts..not good for members as a whole!

Buddha isn't a God of course and their are no rules as such other than to become or in my case 'be' Enlightened. Zorastrainsm is another harmless early form of Gnostic Christianity that was ruthlessly destroyed by more rigidly disciplinarian Christians....as we can see they have won.


The bad guys always win.

[piccione]

////This stuff may be of interest to Eleora who shows a similar adeptness at the 'cut and paste' job but has little meaning to me..a humble Astrologer who has absolutely zero interest in changing the views of others.////

Don’t doubt or question Daz. Have faith!
Besides I’m not a megalomaniac - thinking I could write the atheist bible all by myself....

[piccione]

God as Big Daddy (David King)

["God" is not a concept. At best, one could say it is a concept in the sense in which a dramatist uses concepts to create a character. It is an abstract of actual characteristics of man combined with the projection of impossible, irrational characteristics which do not arise from reality--such as omnipotence and omniscience. God: Somewhere, in an inaccessible place, there is an old man in a nightshirt who knows everything and is all powerful and created everything and rewards and punishes... and can be bribed.
This is only a malignant practical joker with the morals of a terrorist.
Aren't malaria, cholera, syphilis, yellow fever, and bubonic plague
merely the punishments that this infinitely wise, compassionate, and forgiving Father created to inflict upon His children? The victims that He hounds the most gleefully are always the poor, the hungry, the defenseless. What kind of a fiend would we brand any human father who treated his children like that?
The Sun is in a backwater arm of an absolutely humdrum galaxy. Why should I-Am-That-I-Am hang out around here? There must be more pressing things for him to do. All this intervention (in the form of miracles) speaks of incompetence. If god was clever enough to create the Universe, why wasn't He clever enough to create it in such a way that life could evolve naturally without miraculously improbable events? Those who claim that the evolution of life is prohibitively improbable without Divine intervention are saying in effect that god was a bungler who couldn't get it right the first time and who, after ten billion years of tinkering, STILL hasn't got it right! If god is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn't he start the universe in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why's he continually tinkering, repairing and complaining? No, there's one thing the Bible makes clear: God is a sloppy mentufacturer. He's not good at design and he's not good at implementation. He'd be out of business, if there were any competition.]

[piccione]

How not to believe in God (Sam Harris)

[…]

First I want to describe how I view our current situation in the world. Eighty-seven percent of Americans claim to have no doubt whatsoever in the existence of a personal god. Fifty-three percent believe the universe is 6,000 years old and that we have no genetic precursors in the natural world, apart from Adam and Eve. Intelligent Design, which we've all heard a lot about, is a bit of a red herring, in fact, because according to the last Gallup poll, 53% of Americans are creationists. In 2005, a survey was done in 34 countries, trying to assess the level of belief in evolution, and the United States came in 33rd place, just above Turkey.
This is embarrassing. But when you add to this comedy of false certainties the fact that 44% of us think that Jesus is going to come back in our lifetime--22% claim to be certain of this, another 22% think he probably will--you see there's a really terrible liability with this kind of belief. These beliefs are knit together with a variety of beliefs about the end of the world, and about the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. What I would argue to you is that they are really incompatible with preparing a durable future for our civilization.
It really is not an exaggeration to say that 44% of Americans are eagerly anticipating the end of the world. It's very difficult for us to accept that our neighbors actually believe this stuff, and I'm going to talk about that in a second, but this has been polled ad nauseam. Consider an institution like Patrick Henry College. This is a little school that was started six years ago. It's got 240-250 students. It is a kind of feeder school for home-schooled Christian kids to get into government. All the kids who matriculate at Patrick Henry sign a declaration of faith, which reads: "Anyone who dies outside of Christ will be confined in conscious torment for eternity." This apparently is the most important thing to have in your brain if you're going to run the U.S. government in the 21st century. Patrick Henry places more interns in the White House than any other university in the United States. More than Harvard, more than Princeton, more than Yale.
In 2004, the Christian Coalition gave 42 of the 100 U.S. senators perfect scores, which meant they implemented the Christian right's position on every question of importance. So one does not have to be paranoid to see the makings of a stealth theocracy in this country.
Yes, and it's not so stealthy, is it?
We have to realize that people really hold these beliefs. Perhaps you noticed in the recent conflict between Israel and her neighbors, we were inundated with earnest speculation in the press about whether this was a portent that the end of days are upon us. CNN ran three separate hours about this in the span of a week. Nowhere in these broadcasts did a journalist point out the obvious, or what should have been obvious--that this viewing of current events through the lens of biblical prophecy is completely illegitimate, dangerous, and potentially self-fulfilling.
We are not talking about the lunatic fringe. Many of these people are lunatics, of course, but they are not on the fringe of our society. We're talking about megachurch pastors who have congregations in the tens of thousands. We're talking about organizations that have operating budgets in the tens of millions of dollars a year, and some of them in the hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
We're talking about organizations like Christians United for Israel, which is lobbying the administration at this moment to take a very hard line with Iran, for biblical reasons. We may want to take a very hard line with Iran, of course, but it's not going to help to have the religious maniacs on our own side pushing us there.
So we're quite literally talking about grown men and women who are expecting to be raptured into the sky by Jesus. And yet, if you can believe it, the picture is actually bleaker in the Muslim world. In the Muslim world, we are meandering into a conflict on a hundred fronts, with 1.4 billion people, a significant percentage of whom view every question of political or moral significance through the lens of Islam. Which is to say they are going to side with other Muslims in their conflicts with nonMuslims, no matter how sociopathic their behavior, simply because they're Muslims.
Many people in our own society, many people who should know better, such as our fellow secularists, are inclined to apologize for this situation, imagining that all of the conflict in the Muslim world are born of our misadventures and our incompetence and our greed. We have a lot to apologize for, but as those of you who've read The End of Faith know, I think this is a very dangerous misunderstanding of our circumstance. It is a dangerous misunderstanding even if you admit that Iraq has been a catastrophe, as I think it has been. There's no question that there are enemies we have made in Iraq. But there are enemies there whom we have not made. And many of the enemies we have made, we have made on the basis of their theology.
I see faith playing both sides of the board in a very dangerous game. The greatest problem with the rest of us, the secularists and the moderates, is that it's very difficult for us to believe that people actually believe this stuff. We are very bad at appreciating just how far gone religious literalists are. Religious moderates simply declare that fundamentalism is a perversion of the faith, that it is faith gone awry, that the problem is not faith, the problem is fundamentalism. This provides cover for religious extremism. Moderates will not allow us to criticize faith itself, the willingness to believe things strongly on bad evidence.
I'd like to talk about why I think we are in this situation, why people believe what they believe, and why Christians, specifically, believe what they believe, and how people rise to the defense of God. There are really only two ways to do this. People either argue that the religious doctrines are true, or they argue they're useful, and they generally do both of these things without distinguishing between them. It's useful to separate these arguments, however.
First, let's consider this claim that any religious doctrine is true, specifically the doctrine of Christianity. If you're a Christian, you're going to argue there are good reasons to believe Jesus was born of a virgin, that the bible is the word of God, and many Christians do argue this. They'll say, "The tomb was empty on the third day. How do you explain that?" Or, "Many of the disciples saw Jesus walking around after the crucifixion. That is a miracle, that is proof positive that he was the son of God." Or in another mode, also very common, they will invoke this notion of prophecy and its confirmation. The idea is that events in the New Testament confirm Old Testament prophecy. Of course, these are bad arguments. For instance, in the book of Micah, chapter 5, it says that the Messiah is going to be born in Bethlehem, and then--lo and behold!--in Matthew, chapter 2, Jesus is born in Bethlehem. This is rather like events in the first volume of The Lord of the Rings being confirmed by events in the third volume.
But what I want you to recognize is that this reliance on prophecy is an argument. It is an attempt to argue for the validity of these beliefs. It is an effort to say these beliefs are true within some rational framework. In this sense, religious people really are functioning like bad scientists. They have beliefs which they think map on to the world. They think their religious beliefs are true. This is why specific religious doctrines have to be argued against. If we have good reason to believe it's raining outside, we are not free suddenly to believe it's not raining. Some intrusion of evidence or argument is necessary.
It's this first mode of arguing in defense of God--the notion that religious beliefs are true--that inevitably puts religion on a collision course with science. These are beliefs held on bad evidence. They purport to describe the world the way every scientific description does, but they're not rising to the standard of evidence that we require of science or rationality generally. If you believe, for instance, that the American Civil War was a hoax, or you believe it happened in 1920, you have to have good reason or you're going to be thought a lunatic. We change the rules of the game once we talk about the divine origin of certain books. We have a fundamental double standard here. We never respect stupidity in our society unless it is religious stupidity.
This is what I think is so dangerous about religion. It actually allows people by the millions--perfectly sane, perfectly intelligent people--to believe what only lunatics or idiots could believe on their own, because the mode of discourse is systematically sheltered from criticism. If you wake up tomorrow morning believing that saying a few Latin words over your breakfast cereal is going to change it into the body of Julius Caesar or Elvis, you have lost your mind. There's no question about that. But if you believe the same thing about a cracker becoming Jesus, very likely there is nothing wrong with you; you simply happen to be Catholic.
There's a basic truth about us that no double standard can erase. Either you're being intellectually honest, or you're not. Either you are disposed to look at the data dispassionately, or you are disposed to ignore it, or passionately force it to conform to some prior ideology you have. In science, we systematically divest ourselves of dogmatism. In science, we strive toward intellectual honesty, and when science is working, which is to say when it's really science, that is what is achieved.
Religion requires the opposite frame of mind. Religion requires dogmatism. There is no version of Christianity that is in principle open to the proposition, indeed the likelihood, that Jesus was born of an ordinary process of procreation and died like an animal. This is not a version of Christianity that is even thinkable. It completely undercuts the dogma of Christianity. Science grows through challenges like this. This is a difference worth noting.
Many people argue that there's no conflict between religion and science. How do they do this? Well, here's how the trick is done. They do two things. First, they argue that atheists cannot prove there is no god. Therefore atheism is a faith: it's the faith that there is no god, and we appear to be at a standstill. Bertrand Russell annihilated this argument virtually a century ago with his famous teapot analogy: Can you prove that there is not a china teapot in elliptical orbit around the sun at this moment? Well, no. Is it therefore reasonable to believe in such a teapot? No. Is it reasonable to be agnostic with respect to such a teapot? Not quite. End of argument.
The burden is never upon the atheist to prove the absence of celestial teapots. One thing to point out is that every Christian knows this with respect to the beliefs of Muslims. They look at the discourse of Islam. The Muslims claim to have a book which is the perfect word of the creator of the universe. Why do they believe this? Because it says so in the book. No Christian finds this compelling. Yet they refuse to turn this criticism upon their own religious dogmas.

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[Daz Madrigal]

What the blazes is going on here!

Are you trying to drive away our more stable members - Sandy and Gargs are two of my stable lads - by filling the board with a plethora of increasingly mad 'cut and paste' jobs.