I really like the excerpt by Walter Benn Michaels. That's simple, clear thinking explained well. And it addresses a current, very popular fallacy.

On the other hand Mano Singham could use some brain Windex.
Amy: "...he does the cost/benefit analysis of religion:"
That's precisely what he's NOT doing.
Mano: "The key question is not how the balance sheet between good and evil comes out for any particular institution..."
Mano again:
"...my point was that we can obtain every good thing lost using other means and institutions, so in the end we need only lose the bad things caused by religion."
Mano, please, get off my side. This is just a spectacularly bad piece of thinking. Here's my take on what he's saying:
We should replace religion because everything that it provides can be provided elsewhere. Don't bother doing a cost/benefit analysis on religion because we won't agree about the results. These other magical institutions we'll be replacing it with also don't need a cost/benefit analysis because they have no cost; only benefit.
While we're at it, let's totally ignore the fact that religion is an individual choice that some people make on the basis of personal integrity rather than societal cost/benefit analysis. I'm thinking of Dawkin's argument against Pascal's wager as an example of this.

Ann Coulter is either an idiot or a jerk. She's also about as interesting as a rice cake. Why would I pay attention to anything she says?

Shawn, you missed about all of it. The point isn't Ann Coulter, it's criticism of religion, and the way that's supposed to be off-limits.

Religion "poisons everything" as Hitchens titled his book, and Mano makes the point that the benefits can be had elsewhere.

Thanks, we understand that religion is an individual choice. It would be nice if people opted for rational choice. And come on, most don't choose at all. They're born Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, and they insist their god is the greatest god of all. But, if they were born two doors down to another family, they'd be insisting another god was the greatest god of all.

P.S. You could say Ann Coulter is the MacGuffin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin

Blabbity-blah-blah-blah...every time Ann Coulter feels the need for attention...and attention...and attention...and attention...she says something that's sure to piss people off, so the histrionic semi-psychotic is placated once again.

Oh, who are you kidding. She cranks your shaft like nobody's business and you love her for it.

> every benefit claimed for
> it can be provide by other
> existing sources.

This seems dangerously close to telling a gay that he can get everything he needs from a woman, so he oughta switch teams. If he did, one thing he'd have lost would be the choice; one thing you'd have lost is the boundary of not rooting around in the dearest interiors of others' lives.

This seems dangerously close to telling a gay that he can get everything he needs from a woman,

Wrong - because he's not attracted to a woman.

The faithful aren't attracted to Godlessness. What's your point?

Coulter's recent comments strike me as a lot less calculated then her 9/11-widow comments.

So she believes Jews should convert. So what? Deutsch rebuked her (good for him, as it is his show), and the various ADL/Weisenthal-types have publicly criticized her as well (smartly citing official Christian doctrine that doesn't support her "convert 'em all" paradise). You couldn't find a better example of the "marketplace of ideas" submitting public thoughts to public scrutiny. This is America working, people!

So, all told, what is Ruttan whining about? What else would he like to see happen? Ban Coulter? That's silly.

The faithful aren't attracted to Godlessness. What's your point?

People who say we need religion for goodness are wrong.

They don't need it for goodness, they need it for happiness. (Actually they need it for goodness too, but we'll do that another day)

But, they're not happy because of religion. Maybe some feel a sense of ease at believing in bullshit. But, so many people who write to me (letters I don't answer in my column or post here) are living lives of misery because of it. (The man, about 80, who's finally admitted that he's gay, after a lifetime of church-based shame and denial. A bit late to start looking for love.)

That's how it is with the gays, y'know? They're not really happy with each other, they just think they're happy. C'mon, be rational, look at the numbers. No man can find fulfillment without the loving support of his One True Woman, and everybody knows that. They just need to grow up and get with the program.

Right? Sure.

Amy, the way I look at it, religion is the worst belief system out there except for all of the others. I don't think it's a coincidence that ideology rose at the same time in history as religion fell. And frankly, I'd much rather live next door to Ned Flanders than a feminist or and environmentalist or a socialist or some other "-ist" fanatic. Ned generally minds his own business, unlike the ideologues.

That, in a nutshell, is why withing for an atheistic society is a very, very bad idea. Stalin's Russia was an officially atheistic society. Which has got nothing to do with Coulter, but to do with the fantastic Hitchensesque dream of a rational society. People aren't rational. You have to chose the least dangerous irrationality. Get used to it.

Hi, Amy,

Some of your posters may not have known the background to my cost/benefit analysis that you referred to. Some people had suggested to me that even if atheists felt that religion was based on a false premise, religion was just like government and science, in that it provided both good things and bad things, and that therefore we should not seek to discredit it.

My point was that in the case of science and government, getting rid of them completely would mean that we would irretrievably lose the good along with the bad. This is not the case with religion. All the good works and psychological benefits claimed for religion can be provided by other institutions.

Actually I'm finding happiness plooking many, many wrong women in my quest to find my one true woman.
Life is short. Hump like a rabbit with a sudden insight into its own mortality.

Thanks, Mano.

And George, I'm so tired of explaining this. Russia was not a society based on atheism. Atheists are not a connected group with a plan -- we're simply people who don't believe in unproven crap.

Regarding the notion that the Soviet Union was atheistic, Roman Genn, who grew up there writes:

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2007/02/the_mad_russian.html

It most certainly was not. “Jesuits without Jesus,”( in Churchill’s words) certainly, but not without gods. The whole system was undoubtedly structured as a religion — the cult of Lenin and his gang, the Inquisition, the commissars in the army, and consistent extermination of nonbelievers and doubters (committed to mental institutions or expelled from the Motherland during the more vegetarian periods). Soviet Communism was no more than traditional Russian imperialism, draped in the red flag for the consumption of the useful macacas around the globe. Thus, the easy transition into newly founded “spirituality” — the former first secretaries and KGB colonels crossing themselves fervently, with laughable tales about secret baptisms by their babushkas.

It is true that genuine believers are scarce (there’s not one prostitute or a thug in Moscow who doesn’t wear a religious adornment on her/his neck) but who do exist tend to be rabidly anti-Western, anti-American, and anti-Catholic, as the Russian Orthodox Church is the source of the paranoia and hatred of liberal Western values. We will be fooling ourselves if we are to believe that, having exchanged the “Short Course of the History of the Communist Party” for the Bible, the Russians will become civilized.
Nonthink, George, dear, is the problem.

You're actually making my bigger point, though. They were believers in something, whether is was God or Lenin. True unbelievers in this world are extremely rare. Which is why I see the choices not between rational and irrational, but between traditional religion and ideology. And of the two, ideology has resulted in far, far more death and destruction in the 20th century alone than religion has over the entirety of history.

I'd rather be annoyed by my Mormon neighbor trying to convert me than my feminist neighbor calling the cops on me, or my environmentalist neighbor preaching why I shouldn't be watering my lawn.

"Shawn, you missed about all of it. The point isn't Ann Coulter, it's criticism of religion, and the way that's supposed to be off-limits."

No, I do understand, I just don't want to feed the beast of her publicity or think about her when there are so many more worthy examples, such as...
most anyone. I know, the nature of this medium is to grab what's fresh and debate it, so chalk it up as whining on my part if you want.

"Religion 'poisons everything' as Hitchens titled his book, and Mano makes the point that the benefits can be had elsewhere."

If by "makes the point" you mean more than says so, then, no, he doesn't. If I say "The moon is made of green cheese," it's not making a point, merely a statement and a false one at that. Perhaps he makes the point in his book, but not here.
Hitchens, whose book I have read, does make a pretty good case that we would be better off without religion. He tries to look at the costs and benefits both with religion and without it. That's something that Mano explicitly says he's not going to do.

"Thanks, we understand that religion is an individual choice. It would be nice if people opted for rational choice. And come on, most don't choose at all. They're born Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, and they insist their god is the greatest god of all. But, if they were born two doors down to another family, they'd be insisting another god was the greatest god of all."

Yes, and?

There seem to be 2 separate ideas floating around here:
1. People should be able to criticize each other based on having differing ideas. Indeed, it would be hypocritical if they did not. Having different ideas is not the same as having different skin colors.
2. "We" would be better off without religion.

I agree with #1 and can't see how anyone would disagree with it.
I'm personally without religion and tend to think that #2 is true, but would like to see a rigorous case made, not some lazy, fallacious argument.

And more on the topic (Coulter), you may be right that she was simply 1. trying to do her shock jock schtick, and 2. ignorant, but as a practical matter of realpolitik, I think she went over the cliff with this one. This is not going to to conservative-Jew relations or Goy-Jew relations any good, and I think conservatives in particular have a good reason to be furious over the collateral damage that she's done. And I predict that she, whether she realizes is or not, has forever banished herself to the Baker-Buchannan-Paul-Gibson antisemitic corner of the Republican/conservative nexus. I don't think mainstream conservatives like Rush or Hannity are going to want to have anything to do with her from now on.

The question is, how could they manage it before?

Let me buttress my earlier point. Jews have been on the losing end of both religious and ideological fanaticism over the centuries. When it was religious, the deaths would be in the 1000s. It took ideology to bring that into the 1,000,000s. Over the course of less than a decade, an ideologically fueled movement killed far more Jews than all of the religious ones prior combined. And yes, I realize that there was a religious element to that particular ideology, but it was primarily a product of romanticism and utopianism.

Never underestimate the destructiveness of someone who thinks he's one of the anointed few with a mission.

Is it really too dangerous to express an opinion these days?

Am I a terrible person for saying I think it's better to be rational?

Urgh, she drives me crazy!

> Am I a terrible person for
> saying I think it's better
> to be rational?

No, but it's a matter of show vs. tell. Hammering someone over the head and saying they're "WrongWrongWrong!" and telling them what really makes them happy is not persuasive.

I get e-mail from people asking me for further reading on being rational, and when I spoke to kids at the Arsalyn Foundation -- a really great organization that encourages political involvement by high school kids -- a few kids came up afterward and said they were persuaded. Many or most people who are religious will simply refuse to even think about it. I'm willing to keep at it for tiny gains.

And again, I can't tell you how sad it is when I get letters, especially from gay teens, about making a choice between being outcasts from their families and being who they are and having love in their lives with the person who lights them up. And then there are those still living in shame about who they are. Some of them teens, a few of them in their 70s.

Being rational is great. Expecting everyone else to be rational is what gets you into trouble.

Having expectations that other people would behave exactly as I'd like them to would be...irrational!

> I can't tell you how
> sad it is when I get
> letters

Golly, I think I see what you're getting at, Amy!

It's painful when people won't respect a tremendous love in your heart, a pillar of your identity... When people demand "rational" explanations for a powerful feeling that's one of your few sources of warmth on a terribly cold planet, whether it's been with you always or came to you lately... When people who are in no way intimately concerned with your well-being mock your dearest bonds as illusory and contrary to humanity's grand project.

Is that what you're saying?

Y'know, there are a lot more practicing believers out there than practicing gays, perhaps more than an order of magnitude more. Maybe as a gesture of humility, you could give them some compassion.

Sorry, I think it's a bit different when a stranger thinks your beliefs are unfounded and when your family tosses you out because of who you are.

That's right, all you Christians! Your belief in the Baby Jesus is not "who you are!" Amy said so! And Amy gets to choose!

So just know that, OK?

...But blowing guys is what makes a gay who he is.

To sharpen Crid's point a little it, it's an act of faith to believe that there's no medical complexity to what makes people "gay", and it's a simple matter of immutable identity. Not terribly rational.

Besides, Amy, I don't think your concern for gays is entirely about how they're treated by their families.

This is as beautiful as an LA afternoon gets to be. let's everyone run naked through the streets and fall in love, we can wrap this up this whole "God" thing later

"Who you are": In that case, a person who is attracted to people of the same sex.

Don't get too gleeful in trying to tag me irrational, George.

And Crid, it's one example.

There is that pesky matter of how I think gays should get the right to marry if they wish, and not according to the Crid/Catholic constraints of what sexuality would be an appropriate partner.

That's a pretty peculiar and superficial notion of who someone is.

Sorry Amy, Mano, I thought this through a long time ago and atheism is not rational. Agnosticism may be rational. You would have to know more than any of us know to be rational while denying the existence of God. You would have to know enough be able to prove the non-existence of God. On the other hand, it is an entirely rational position to say that you don't know enough to believe or disbelieve in God. In short, atheism is a belief, not the result of rational thinking.

I'm one of those that doesn't believe humans are hardly ever rational. You, Amy, seem pretty emotional to me. Why is your emotionalism good and my Religion bad?

Don't nitpick. It's part of who somebody is -- more important if it means they're an outcast from their family.

...But blowing guys is what makes a gay who he is.

No, actually it has far more to do with being attracted to members of the same sex. Someone who is a virgin, never had any sexual contact, can still be gay. One of my best friends in high school, figured out he was gay, when he tried to lose his virginity. He suspected it, that confirmed it for him, yet he didn't actually have any of the sex, until he was halfway through college, six years later.

That's a pretty peculiar and superficial notion of who someone is.

Not really. I am a lot of things. I'm a father. I'm a handyman. I'm a blogger. I'm a songwriter. I'm a domestic partner. I'm a father to be. I'm bipolar. I'm ADHD. I'm a shaved/trimmed pubes fetishist. I'm a semi-submissive fetishist. I'm an occasional crossdresser. I'm a mentor to a couple of fatherless boys. I'm hetero. I'm a man. I'm pretty accurately described as a liberal. I'm an extreme insomniac. I have been in the past, a pretty serious substance abuser. I'm a member of my church. I'm a volunteer in my community. I'm a member of an interfaith alliance for the separation of church and state. Etc.

Take any one of those labels by itself and it's just as accurate, as putting them all together like that. Taking them on an individual basis, depending on the context of the discussion at hand, is not superficial in the least. Do you honestly think that we have to list all the identifiers, to not be superficial?

John -

You seem to have a misunderstanding of what most atheists believe. I don't know very many who actually speak in terms of an absolute. Dawkins, Harris and Dennett (not sure about Hitchens), have all stated categorically that they don't believe in God, because they find the existence of God extremely unlikely. That may sound like fine parsing, but it's not as fine as you might think. (BTW, I do not consider myself an atheist, though I reject the notion of revealed religion.)

I was just using the standard definition. Sorry.

Shawn said: "Religion is an individual choice that some people make on the basis of personal integrity rather than societal cost/benefit analysis."

Actually, this is seldom the case, for the majority of people worldwide have exactly the same religion their parents had. In other words, they are not thinking for themselves, but rather are mindlessly accepting a belief system imposed upon them by their parents at an early age. They are, in effect, brainwashed.

This is the essense of what Amy and Mano are getting at: religion consists of a perpetuated system of beliefs handed down from person to person, and is rarely a product of reason or personal choice. Think about this: *very single thing* that believers think they know about god came from other human beings -- not from god himself. Doesn't that say something?

John -

Your missing the point. The definition is not inaccurate, it's the implication you draw from it that's in error. You are trying to oversimplify the situation to fit your conclusions. It just isn't that simple.

A better way to put it, most atheists don't believe in God, because they see no evidence for the existence of God. They don't say that there is no way a god could exist, they merely say they have never encountered evidence to suggest one does. This is not a leap of faith on their part. Show them definitive proof that God exists, they'll be right there believing, accepting that they were mistaken.

What would be irrational, is if they decided to believe in God, in spite of not finding evidence for the existence of God.

I don't talk in terms of absolutes.

I see no evidence there's a god, therefore I do not believe in god. Likewise, I see no evidence my desk lamp can levitate, so I do not believe my desk lamp can levitate.

"*very single thing* that believers think they know about god came from other human beings -- not from god himself."

How rational is it to make absolute pronouncements that you have no hope of proving? You don't know enough about spiritual matters to be competent to judge. My point: absolutely rejecting Religion is just as irrational as believing in it. The rational mind must remain open since complete knowledge is not possible.

I think Christians need to work on perfecting themselves first before they start worrying about perfecting others. Christians never seem to understand why Jews get so upset when they hear Ann Coulter’s comments or see Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ celebrated. No matter what an individual Jew may believe or not believe about Jesus and his teachings, there is one thing that almost all Jews are in agreement. To Jews, Jesus is far from the prince of peace. For 2000 years, Christians in the name of Jesus have thrown out the Ten Commandments when dealing with Jews. An early Christian Church leader by the name of Chrysostom denounced Jews as 'most miserable of all men' -- 'lustful, rapacious, greedy, perfidious bandits' -- 'inveterate murderer, destroyers, men possessed by the devil' -- 'debauchery and drunkenness have given them the manners of the pig and the lusty goat' -- 'pests of the universe' -- 'they have surpassed the ferocity of wild beasts, for they murder their offspring.' It did not take long for words like this to incite Christians to torment and kill their Jewish neighbors. Historians report that the First Crusade led to the death of one quarter to one third of the Jewish population of Germany before the Crusaders ever placed one boot on the soil of the Holy Land. Tens of Thousands of Jews were killed because Christian leaders blamed Jews for poisoning the wells and starting the Black Plague. Jews soon learned to greatly fear the production of a local passion play. Nothing incited rape, looting and mass murder better then the call for revenge on the Jews for killing their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The death count is believed to be in the Thousands for some towns and villages and over a Hundred Thousand in certain regions of Europe. The same year Columbus sailed the ocean blue, Christian rulers came up with a solution to the Jewish Problem. Their solution was for the Jews to convert to Christianity or be expelled from their kingdoms. The Spanish Inquisition used torture and murder to make sure the Jews who remained were sincere in their desire to worship Jesus. While almost every country in Western Europe made it illegal to be Jewish, those Jews who fled with only the clothes on their backs eventually found homes in Eastern Europe. These “unperfected” Jews did not find the peace and quiet they desired more than anything else. The Final solution to the Jewish problem, that lead to many indiscrimate killings and eventually led to the mass murder of Six Million Jews, was first proposed not by Hitler but by another famous German. Martin Luther in his treatise titled The Jews and Their Lies wrote that it “not be considered a trifling matter but a most serious one to seek counsel against this and to save our souls from the Jews, that is, from the devil and from eternal death. My advice, as I said earlier, is: First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire... Second, that all their books-- their prayer books, their Talmudic writings, also the entire Bible-- be taken from them, not leaving them one leaf, and that these be preserved for those who may be converted...Third, that they be forbidden on pain of death to praise God, to give thanks, to pray, and to teach publicly among us and in our country...Fourth, that they be forbidden to utter the name of God within our hearing. For we cannot with a good conscience listen to this or tolerate it...” When Christians talk about a perfect world where everyone in it professes a belief in the divinity of Jesus, the first thing that Jews always wonder about is how far will Christians be willing to go this time to make their dreams come to fruition Many Jews believe that constant vigilance is the only thing preventing the horrors of the past from happening today. Even in a “Christian Nation” dedicated to religious freedom such as the United States of America.

Amy -

Ahh, that's only evident because you don't have someone who is capable of levitating things around. Although to be honest, I'm starting to lose faith that I'll ever perfect that skill myself. I tried for years, when I was roofing, hoping to move the bundles of shingles, with the power of my mind. Yet the best I could manage, was to get the wrappers to rustle a little bit, once in a while:)

John -

How rational is it to make that comment, when two people just got done explaining that atheists don't generally speak or believe in absolutes?

Well, Amy, the power of faith is evidence. While I believe it's evidence of the existence of God and you don't, you could be rational enough to admit it may be evidence of the existence of God. If you don't know of any examples of the power of faith you could keep an open mind and look for them. It doesn't cost anything to keep an open mind, does it?

"*very single thing* that believers think they know about god came from other human beings -- not from god himself."

This is an absolute, DuWayne.

Eric, in this day and age, Christians are by and large on the side of Jews. So one of them was "insensitive" to you. You are being insensitive with that litany of wrongs done. I'll cut you some slack though since at least you believe in God.

Eric - I don't disagree with a thing you say, but DUDE! Learn what paragraphs are. They're really handy.

John -

Eric, in this day and age, Christians are by and large on the side of Jews. So one of them was "insensitive" to you. You are being insensitive with that litany of wrongs done.

I'll cut you some slack though since at least you believe in God.

Well, Amy, the power of faith is evidence.

That's absolutely ridiculous, and at the same time, ridiculously obtuse.

I absolutely LOVE her hair. It's gorgeous!

Now if only someone would permanently sew her mouth shut, I would be delighted about her ability to work the limelight as much as she does.

"If it's not obvious why that's so backhanded as to be downright unchristian, I don't think there's any hope for you."

Well, I've offended George. If I can't be a Christian anymore, can I join your religion, Eric?

I have to leave now. Or I may lapse into trolldom. Too bad I wasn't able to convince anyone here that an open mind is a good thing. Not that I expected to.

Amy, I have experienced the power of faith. I know it's real. The fault of not understanding is on you.

True unbelievers in this world are extremely rare. Which is why I see the choices not between rational and irrational, but between traditional religion and ideology.

Yup. My mother's theory is that how you feel about a religion is almost entirely based on your experience with the people who practice that religion. Which explains why I feel more comfortable at Sunday Mass than I do among an earnest group of people saying joyfully that Al Gore should run for president, because only he can Save The World!

Amy, if it's any comfort, those kids who said you were going to hell said similar things to me, because I was/am a dreaded Papist who hadn't been born again. (I thought being born once was quite enough.) As Heinlein would say, the brown monkeys tend to persecutie the pink monkeys, and I was definitely a pink monkey in my hometown.

I'd say that's more-or-less true in the U.S. Not quite so true in the UK, and definately not true in Russia.

Have to agree with that, sadly. I'm generalizing here, but I now think more and more that the period after WWII in which anti-Semitism was discouraged was a historical anomaly that's fading away along with vivid memories of the Holocaust. It's not that I never have any criticism of Israel's policies - it's that I have a hard time finding people critiquing those policies in a thoughtful way, as opposed to devolving into conspiracy theories and the like.

Amy, I have experienced the power of faith. I know it's real. The fault of not understanding is on you.

Your subjective experience is not evidence. I'm so sorry that you don't know any better, but I'm now behind in my deadline and don't have time to explain why. Perhaps somebody else will.

Imagine if children were raised to be rational rather than to be religious, and then given a choice as to believing in god when they turned 18. How many of those "Of course I'm Christian! (or Jewish or whatever)" types would even be in any religion at all?

Here's to us pink monkeys, Marion. There are parts of being an outsider that seem to work out for the best.

Fucking pink and brown monkey's. Always persecuting us purple lemurs.

I don't know why religious people just don't admit that they're hooked on a feeling (everybody start singing...). It feels nice to stop thinking and live in lala land. Thinking and analysing reality is just too much darn hard work!

But they want to pretend that they're not just lazy, so they try to convince people that their religion is logical and based in science. Don't know why they bother-nobody's buying the BS.

Don't know anything about purple lemur's sex lives-sorry. Well, I'll get right on it-Discovery or Animal Planet might have a show on that.

Chrissy -

You really, truly and honestly, probably don't want to know about the sex life of this purple lemur (with my partner two months from birthing and rather cranky about anything that involves being horizontal, it's currently asexual anyways). I really only listed the tamer of fetishes above.

I find it sad that so many atheists believe (yes believe) that they are rational and religious believers are not.

I used to believed in the "religion" of science. Today, I have great respect for the methodology of science and its ability to discover truth about the world. But religions are about transcendence, which by definition is not subject to rigorous scientific truth.

I became a Catholic in my 50's, after having become an agnostic in high school. I've had plenty of time to think it over, and frankly find arrogant anyone who is sure they have the answer for anyone else - especially when they claim to have a monopoly on rationalism.

Science (and academic study in general) is a result of the Christian belief that it was man's duty to understand the wonders created by God (check out your history of the "dark" ages). Science deals with falsifiable hypotheses, and NOTHING ELSE.

So my hypothesis is that God exists. Now, do you really believe you can scientifically falsify that? You can cast doubt on it. You can argue all around it (and the deceit of the modern world is that we are the first to have thought of all these complex arguments, when they are ancient).

You can attempt to explain religious experience. You can point to brain chemistry, use functional MRI, etc. None of that reductionist science, valid as it is, explains transcendent experience.

You can explain what happens after death - but can you prove it? For that matter, can you truly comprehend the end of your own existence? In what reference frame/

I don't expect to convert anyone (and I never try), but I think that the certainty of atheists is like the certainty of communists or religious fundamentalists, and no more rational.

Finally, the idea that "religion" is one thing that can be good or bad - that one can do a cost-benefit analysis about - is simplistic. How about getting a bit more refined? And do we include atheism in religions? How about ideologies, which are psychologically very similar? There are evil religions (contrary to what one may think, the Nazi's developed a variant of Norse religion and impressed it on the youth who became the SS). That doesn't make religion. Nor does it mean one should throw it all out, even if on balance (one I reject) the costs of religion (as a huge concemptual blob) is more than the value.

And I honestly don't feel all that persecuted. I just avoid hanging out where my kind aren't welcome. With the nicer sorts of pink and brown monkeys. But mostly with the other purple lemurs. We like to mock everyone else when they're not around.

But if we ever get into power, we won't actually persecute anyone else.

Sorry, I'm on deadline now, but here's a page that responds to some of the claims above:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/intro.html

John Moore -

I'm not actually an atheist, but neither am I on a deadline.

I used to believed in the "religion" of science. Today, I have great respect for the methodology of science and its ability to discover truth about the world. But religions are about transcendence, which by definition is not subject to rigorous scientific truth.

First off, "science" is not even a philosophical position. If you want to frame this properly, you would say the "religion" of methodological naturalism. Second, at the very height of my theism (I was a fundy, young earther, when I was younger), I never believed in the "supernatural." If it exists, then it is natural and therefore potentially quantifiable. I do have a certain sense of God belief, or more accurately, I believe in a spiritual duality, that has room for a potential god. I do not believe this is transcendent at all. If it is true, if man does have a spiritual duality to the physical, then there is every possibility of "proving" it.

The notion that anything gets a free ride, is juvenile. I have no real issues with religionists, for the most part. Live and let live, if they do the same. But I will not put faith, mine or anyone else's on a bloody pedestal, where it can't be touched by reality.

You can attempt to explain religious experience. You can point to brain chemistry, use functional MRI, etc. None of that reductionist science, valid as it is, explains transcendent experience.

The exact same argument can be made for the mechanisms behind neurological disorders. The fact is that much can be explained. I am bipolar and have severe ADHD. None the of reductionist science can explain either, or my insomnia, in total clarity, but it does explain a lot of all of them. I happen to believe that part of what you are describing, can be attributed to duality. That does not mean it should somehow get a special place beyond science. If it is, it is and I imagine that neuroscience is the field that is the likeliest to work it all out.

You can explain what happens after death - but can you prove it? For that matter, can you truly comprehend the end of your own existence? In what reference frame/

The burden of proof here, is on you. Personally, I don't think it's likely all over when the body dies, but I don't assume it's not. And honestly, I'm not arrogant enough to assume that that shouldn't be it. Whether we continue after death or not, even from a very fundamental Christian viewpoint, we are in effect over with, moving into a very different frame of reference.

I don't expect to convert anyone (and I never try), but I think that the certainty of atheists is like the certainty of communists or religious fundamentalists, and no more rational.

What certainty? Haven't seen any expressed here, or by any of the myriad atheist thinkers I've read.

As for the rest, I'll respond to that later, if I still feel like it. I do have a very important deadline coming upon me quickly now, that of getting some more playtime, before story time and getting the boy to bed.

> it's one example

Absolutely. That's where you're head's at.

> constraints of what sexuality
> would be an appropriate

Not "sexuality": sex. Gender. Gender makes a profound difference in lives and character, greater than any other force. Let's give it some respect.

>would be an appropriate partner.

A few years ago, I noticed that youthful women tended to abuse the word "appropriate", and resolved to give no attention to any woman using it who wasn't in her fourth (at least) decade of life on this planet.

Don't make me change the boundary, OK?

Didn't everybody go out at have fun in the beautiful autumn afternoon? Santa Monica was heavenly, just majestic.

By the way, the Eric in this this thread is not the eric (of CDA).

> (I thought being born once
> was quite enough.)

I'm going to steal that line

A few years ago, I noticed that youthful women tended to abuse the word "appropriate", and resolved to give no attention to any woman using it who wasn't in her fourth (at least) decade of life on this planet.

Don't make me change the boundary, OK?

The quintessence of elevated couth and elegance indeed. Girlfre-end.

How old are you?

But they want to pretend that they're not just lazy, so they try to convince people that their religion is logical and based in science.

I take exception to that. I am happy to admit that my religion is based in a 2,000-year-old patriarchy featuring lots of incense, wine and art. And chanting. Don't forget the chanting.

I'm going to steal that line

Please do! I stole it from someone myself.

Whether one can get all the good from religion elsewhere or not can be debated; however, the simple fact is they don't. Any society built on rationality will eventually confront the same cost/benefit analysis in terms of the individual vs society as a whole. As has happened in the past whenever a society is built on reason, the same type of persecution you now protest will result; the gulag will replace the pogrom. Religion is merely the mirror of the human being in all its ugliness and glory. Just as the good in it may be found elsewhere, so may the bad.

"Any society built on rationality will eventually confront the same cost/benefit analysis in terms of the individual vs society as a whole."

And when the leadership of any society built on religion fails, it can simply blame the populace for a lack of faith.
Sweet.

Tito...you make this claim (quoted above by Gog) based on what, exactly?

John, do you keep an open mind about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Great Pumpkin? I'm every bit as certain god(s) doesn't exist as I am they don't. I am one of those rare Atheists (I capitalize with pride) who will come right out and say the damned obvious -- there is no God! If you think that's irrational but that it's not irrational to doubt the existence of Babe the Blue Ox then I don't think I have a problem with your thinking me irrational. But if you did happen to prove me wrong and that the God of the buy-bull did exist, I'd still reject the sadistic s.o.b. That off my chest, however, I am the rare being either religious or irreligious that will posit that belief is not a choice. Sometimes only because the believer doesn't think (and I've yet to run across the believer who doesn't eventually come down to "faith" not proof; gee, I wonder why) but it's not a choice even if they only believe because they are brainwashed not to think. Either you find a thing is credible or you don't. However, it's not like being gay in that it can change. I once found God credible. Then I read the Holy Bible to get closer to him and understand him better. That brought me to the conclusion that Jesus couldn't possibly be the Messiash and I started more intensely studying what had always been an interest of mine since I was a young child -- Judaism, even going to synagogue and taking Hebrew and conversion classes but that too fell apart under close scrutiny and I didn't go through with the conversion. Went through what I now call my agnostic stage for several years where I'd shrug and say I don't know, I don't care. That's the cowardly refuse to state or admit the obvious stance. It too didn't stand up to common sense.

John, do you keep an open mind about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Great Pumpkin?

Exactly.

How many of you who "keep an open mind" about god are equally open-minded about the existence of other figures there's just as little (ie, zero) evidence for?

Okay, I'm still stuck on this nugget from the beginning of the discussion:

I'd rather be annoyed by my Mormon neighbor trying to convert me than my feminist neighbor calling the cops on me

George, why do people feel the need to call the cops on you?

All I can say is: at one second past the moment you take your last breath on this earth, you will "know" the truth. But, you can't come back and tell us. Religion I dislike, faith is a completely different thing. But in the end, this entire business is a gamble with oneself....a. if it is not true, no harm no foul and you won't know about anyway; b. if it is true, well then....too late, hmmmmmm?

Heh...good question, Rebecca!

You know me, ever allergic to hyperbole.

"But in the end, this entire business is a gamble with oneself....a. if it is not true, no harm no foul and you won't know about anyway; b. if it is true, well then....too late, hmmmmmm?"

This pap is known as "Pascal's Wager" -- well documented here at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager

Thank you, Gog...noticed that, and was about to yell "Cleanup in aisle five!" (I'm on deadline and about dead), and you came along just in time.

"Tito...you make this claim (quoted above by Gog) based on what, exactly?"

History. Russia, China, Eastern Europe, Cambodia, etc. You can even go back to 1789 France. Whenever rationality gains primacy, individuals matter less. The society as a whole tends to become a meat grinder, sacrificing the few for the "greater good." Of course, you may counter that those regimes I named were not truly rational, to which a religious person might counter the Inquisition, etc. were not truly religious. There is a malignancy within the human soul that both religion and rationality limit, but that neither can extinguish.

See Roman Genn's writing I quoted above. I'm on deadline, can't really comment on this now, but your thinking isn't correct. Maybe somebody else will weigh in. Gotta run.

John said: "How rational is it to make absolute pronouncements that you have no hope of proving? You don't know enough about spiritual matters to be competent to judge. My point: absolutely rejecting Religion is just as irrational as believing in it. The rational mind must remain open since complete knowledge is not possible."

Alright, John. Show me *just one* religious claim that can be validated by repeated scientific testing, and you'll make a believer out of me. Really!

And speaking of "absolute pronouncements that you have no hope of proving" ... how do *you know* that I don't know enough about spiritual matters to be competent to judge? What qualifies you to make such a claim about me?

Catholics belive that god will damn them to eternal torment if they fail to recive last rites, but if you do recive last rights all is forgiven - murder, pedophilia, its all good.
- How rational is that?

Lutherans worship in a faith wherein one of their foundtions is that their church is a false one.
- How rational is that?

Mormons belive that they might one day become gods themselves
- How rational is that?

Jehovas Witnesses belive that only 144,000 people in the whole of creation get into heaven, why they practice a faith where they know they wont get in is beyond me
- How rational is that?

Calvinists belive there is no point in morality as god will choose who gets into heaven himself no matter how you act
- How rational is that?

Angelicans belive in the divinity of Henry the 8th, a serial killer king and his devine right to divorce, can anyone say WHAT THE FUCK
- How rational is that?

Not to mention most christian faith ignore the bible when t suits them prefering to belive tht jesus is god, even though jesus said he wasnt.

How rational is it to belive something that contradicts they very souce of its supposed authority? Your lord and savior says he is not god, but what the hell does he know, my bishop says he is.

I swear slamming your head over and over into a brick wall has more impact in the world at large than trying to get people to even consider thing rationally.

And as Amy pointed out how many people how believe in god refuse to believe in santa, or leprechauns and centuars?

As sad in the simpsons

"The mound builders worshipped turtles as well as badgers, snakes, and other animals." -Lisa
"Thank God we've come to our senses and worship a carpenter who lived 2,000 years ago." -Bart

Sue, Pascal's Wager is ridiculous. First of all, there's way too much to be lost if you spend your life living in fear of a God that doesn't exist. You spend the one life you have (and how precious a commoditiy is that given it's the one thing that no matter how rich or poor we all have a limited quantity of) living in fear instead of freely and following some rather questionable rules. Secondly, if there was a God, he (or she or it or they) would see right through that ruse and throw you straight into the pit with me. Third, you'd better pick carefully since there's so many gods to possibly offend by following the wrong one and most of them demand that you worship them and only them. Gambling on God is a loser's bet!

There's a blog at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article1779771.ece discussing "The God Delusion". Latest entry is interesting:

As I cant compete with the educational background I also had trouble understanding the article because of the advanced vocabulary. However, Iv managed to get the bottom line. Anyone who has taken a science class or a western civilization class can begin questioning their own organized religeon if any. But to go as far as saying that people are ignorant because they lean on a belief for comfort is bold and yet the author wants them to buy his book. I say science and history are outstanding, but you cant deny what you were born with. Its whats in your heart that allows you to believe in a creator, God, Buddha, Allah, etc. It isnt something youre taught. All of your research could never be more rewarding or more sustaining than the belief and the love that comes from within your heart. Unless you dont have one.

rosemarie, cherry hill , america, NJ

Says it all, dontcha think?

Ugh.

Being able to reason doesn't take a big vocabulary, or vast quantities of intelligence. And living with reason (rather than magical thinking) makes your life better in many ways. For example, I don't waste a moment of mine, because it seems all there is in the way of "life after death," is a really big dinner on my body for a bunch of worms.

"There is a malignancy within the human soul that both religion and rationality limit, but that neither can extinguish."

No there isn't.

"Lutherans worship in a faith wherein one of their foundtions is that their church is a false one.
- How rational is that?"

Very. The Church (any church) is a human contrivance and will meet the same fate as the Hindenburg or the Titanic.

Boy, I've missed out on all the fun, while my connection has been on the fritz.

Tito, are you still there?

You listed a lot of countries that have little to nothing to do with rationality. They merely traded religious fervor for nationalistic fervor that is no better. There is nothing rational about revolutionary fervor, indeed, it is too often the antithesis.

And you could, very accurately in my opinion, argue that the crusades had only a cursory connection to religion. To a lesser degree the same could be argued about the inquisition. But just as nationalistic fervor drove the "rational" regimes you list, religion was the impetus to making the crusades and the inquisition happen.

Stalin and Mao, achieved their ends, not because they based their regimes on atheism, that was a byproduct of coopting Marxist philosophy. Nor did the French revolution base itself on enlightenment values, it was based on the desire of the people to rise above the atrocities of the monarchy. It just happened that the revolution was fomented in part, by enlightenment thinkers. No matter how much the ringleaders might have wanted to see an uprise of their enlightenment values, they were powerless to check the post-revolutionary society.

So no, you have yet to list any society that has actually come close to operating in the realm of the rational. But please, feel free to try again.

Norman, it is what you are taught. While your personality certainly plays in, especially your hang-ups, despite what Hilary Clinton claims, every child is born an atheist. They have no concept of god in any form until they are taught the myths. So much for God revealing himself. And that bit about unless you don't have a heart is just another bit of religious bigotry towards the infidel. A heart is nothing more than an organ that pumps blood to the brain that controls the emotions that get incorrectly labelled heart. We all have them.

Donna-

The quote is not my words. I liked it because the writer was at least being kind to others, though she got just about every point back to front.