Scamming in the Name of God

Perhaps you have received the same email that I was blessed to receive. Jesus said that his disciples would be “fishers of men.” I call this one “Phishing for Men.” Read more

Why are Americans so religious?

Is the separation of state and church is our downfal?

The separation of church and state allows religious freedom, whereas religious freedom was not allowed in any large country anywhere else in the world. It allowed religions to diversify and adapt and evolve and compete for adherents. The most persuasive ideologies like Catholicism, evangelical Christianity and fundamentalist Christianity won, and the other competitors were the losers.

Go to a large church in the United States, and the services are like rock concerts with thousands singing and clapping and dancing.

Keeping religious symbols also feeds the monster, as well as the commercialism of Christmas and Easter which perpetuates Christianity.

We are a nation of religious hypocrites, alongside very vocal fundamentalist extremists. The majority seem to be cultural Christians who like the warm, fuzzy notions that come along with a god belief meanwhile ignoring whatever they don’t like. Sure, they’ll profess to be Christians because it’s traditional and more socially acceptable, and then rarely set foot inside a church, read a Bible, engage in whatever extramarital sex they prefer, and go to the bar to get loaded. But still, they are good “Christians” who consider themselves to be believers.

Then, of course, we see the guilt of this hypocrisy when this majority of cultural Christians enable the radical fundamentalists, who seem to thrive in our government, through notions like removing evolution/teaching creationism in schools or a gay marriage ban. It achieves a false sense of piety when they get to persecute minorities via what they claim is a religious morality that they themselves often disregard. And they seem to keep getting nuttier and nuttier; it’s depressing, especially in the face of the next election and Huckabee so likable and popular.

Atheist Christmas - PART 3

                                                  Lets go back in time to December of 2002, and we will return to the Part 3 of my original blog entry for December 25, 2006.

The story of a Catholic Teenager turned Atheist - finale

Silence, Reverence, & Peace…

The hallmarks of a Church. I just wish that the new age understood this before they had decided to take their previously unexpressed teenage angst and inflict it upon the Church and Christianity. I lived and still live amongst Christians. I understand Christianity much better than most of the true believers out there. After spending 12 years in bible classes, many years of church every single day (when I lived in Bahrain) & rest of the years, I visited church only on Sundays (after coming back to India). My knowledge about what I am and what I wanted to become was at a turning point. I had my path chosen already. The path of god. No, I wasn’t going to be a priest. I wanted to be out there helping people. The poor, those who are hungry, those who lack spirit. To give them strength, hopes for a better tomorrow. But my faith was to be put to an ultimate test. Read more

Logical Path from Religious Beliefs to Evil Deeds

Nobody is suggesting that all religious people are violent, intolerant, racist, bigoted, contemptuous of women and so on. It would be absurd to suggest such a thing: just as absurd as to generalize about all atheists. I am not even concerned with statistical generalizations about the majority of religious people (or atheists). My concern here is over whether there is any general reason why religion might be more or less likely to bias individuals towards all those unpleasant things in Christopher Hitchens’s list: to make them more likely to exhibit them than they would have been without religion. I think the answer is yes.

Religion changes, for people, the definition of good. Atheists and humanists tend to define good and bad deeds in terms of the welfare and suffering of others. Murder, torture, and cruelty are bad because they cause people to suffer. Most religious people think them bad, too, but some religions (for example the religion of the Taliban) sanction all of them under some circumstances. For non-religious people, the behavior of consenting adults in a private bedroom is the business of nobody else, and is not bad unless it causes suffering – for example by breaking up a happy family. But many religions arrogate to themselves the right to decide that certain kinds of sexual behavior, even if they do no harm to anyone, are wrong.

The actions of the Taliban, their vile bullying of women, their sanctimonious hatred of all that might lead to enjoyment, their violence, their ignorant bigotry, their hatred of education, their cruelty, seem to me to be as close to pure evil as anything I can imagine. Yet, by the lights of their own religion they are supremely righteous – really good people.

The nineteen men of 9/11, having washed, perfumed themselves and shaved their whole bodies in preparation for the martyr’s paradise, believed they were performing the highest religious duty. By the lights of their religion they were as good as it is possible to be. They were not poor, downtrodden, oppressed or psychotic; they were well educated, sane and well balanced, and, as they thought, supremely good. But they were religious, and that provided all the justification they needed to murder and destroy. Their madrassas and their mullahs had given them good reason to think they were on a fast track to paradise.

Polls suggest that 13% of British Muslims regard the 7/7 London bombers as blessed martyrs. Neighbors and friends expressed bewilderment that such nice, gentle, kind, youth-clubbing, cricket-loving young men could do such terrible things. But once you understand what they truly and sincerely believed – that it was Allah’s will that they blow up buses and subways – it becomes all too easy to understand.

It is easy for religious faith, even if it is irrational in itself, to lead a sane and decent person, by rational, logical steps, to do terrible things. There is a logical path from religious faith to evil deeds. There is no logical path from atheism to evil deeds. Of course, many evil deeds are done by individuals who happen to be atheists. But it can never be rational to say that, because of my nonbelief in religion, it would be good to be cruel, to murder, to oppress women, or to perpetrate any of the evils on the Hitchens list.

The following quotation from the Nobel prize winning physicist Steven Weinberg has become well known, but it is so devastatingly true that it is worth quoting again and again: “With or without [religion] you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.”

Richard Dawkins

Chain Letters From Jesus

So, not too long ago, I received a “small” package in the mail. Enclosed within this thick, stuffed envelope were 5 crisply folded pages and a return envelope. Return address? Saint Matthew’s Churches, PO Box 21210 Tulsa, OK 74121-9938. First thoughts? “THIS should be interesting…” And boy oh boy was it ever! You see folks, God apparently wants to bless me…but he needs my “seed faith” money to do it. (C’mon, you can’t just go around blessing people with checks of $6,000 or help people get off drugs without a little ‘ching’ if you’re God. If god did that, he would go broke and that’s just not a good way to run a business!) Read more

The Demonization Of Matthew (or Religion is the Problem, not the Answer)

Matthew Murray’s world was haunted by demons.

Somehow, a child of a prominent doctor, someone who was home schooled in a comfortable Denver suburb, evolved from would-be Christian missionary to a killer trying to rain Columbine down on the Christian world.

A family spokesman said Murray grew up in a loving home. But other interviews and what appear to be Murray’s own online ramblings portray a disturbed individual who resented his sheltered upbringing, had problems with his mother, heard voices in his head, felt rejected and abused — and yet appeared to be searching for a place to belong.

He sought refuge in everything from an online forum for recovering Pentecostals to an occult group.

End of quote and beginning of my rant.

I feel so much pity for this young man. It was no loving home he grew up in; if it was his parents would have known about his problems. Voices in his head? Did they think it was Jesus talking to him? Wasn’t it a warning? Or is it a given that the religious expect to hear voices? Isn’t that what is taught from the pulpit and in the Bible where and everpresent but invisible being hears and sees everything we do and say, but only speaks to the chosen in the heads?

I know only too well about the isolation of growing up in a fundie home. No one to talk to, no one to discuss anything with; from religion to social aspects. God is supposed to be your best friend and he is supposed to provide all the answers. The contrary is however true. God is not the answer, it is the problem; remove God/Allah with his unfair and inhuman expectations out of the equation and leave us to be normal human beings with normal desires and emotions.

I blame Mathews parents and ultimately religion for what happened. When the bubble burst and Mathew needed support, he was alone; so he went on internet forums to have the outlet he so desperately needed. He wanted to disassociate himself from his religious background but was so brainwashed that it caused him only pain and anguish, intense bewilderment and in the end, a tragedy.

What will happen now is that fundie parents will prohibit their children to have access to the internet - and the snowball becomes only bigger. The young men and women will become increasingly isolated and bewildered in a world full of temptation, a flesh and blood body screaming for release which is sinful in the eyes of the God they pray to.

A few of Mathew’s cries for help on forums:

I remember growing up in pentecostalism/evangelicalism, we were always told to support the republicans/conservatives and to “hate those evil satanic democrats.” Jesus never said to put our trust in any political leader, yet we see so many christians trying sooooo hard to believe that “America was founded on fundamentalist evangelical christianity and we must turn america back towards God!!!(the evangelica/fundamentalist/pentecostal version nontheless)”

Another one:

Internet was treated as one of Satan’s special weapons in the “end-times” to promote sex(which everyone knows is of the Devil…..) Everyone was terrified that one of us teenagers *might* get a glimpse of a naked body and become demon possessed. This always confused me for how can viewing what God designed be satanic at the same time? And if we “lust” are the demons able to read our thoughts and somehow *know* to seize upon us? Isn’t it possible to see nudity without *lusting* somehow? Of course, the senior pastor’s two oldest children, one male the other female, got someone pregnant and got pregnant; the other two younger ones were proven to be sexually active. Other church leader’s children were sexually active.

More important:

Well, I got all fed up with the insanity, hypocrisy, conflicting doctrines, the and lack of absolute answers in regards to “salvation,” heaven and hell and other theological issues, the child abuse, brainwashing, lies, gossip, scandals, threats and fear mongering. I got tired of always hearing “oooohh, you’re saved by grace, not by works!” “Everybody loves you! Jesus loves you!” only to hear about how I was going to hell for watching “The simpsons” or could lose my salvation and could never be certain if 30 years from now I might lose it due to some odd sin and die in an accident and end up in this eternal hell preached to us day and night.

Me, I found a new Law to live by and I realized……I don’t have to be abused nor submit to these liars and their lies nor do I have to be afraid of this make-believe hell and false theory of salvation which no fundamentalist Christian could ever give solid answers on.

Me and many others are waking up.
We will rise up above and against these abuses against humanity.
Men will no longer be ruled by fear and superstition, oppressed by bigotry and tyranny.

In his own words.

The absurdity of religion - Part 1.

A short, condensed summary of the first part of:

An introduction by Christopher Hitchens to the book: The Portable Atheist.

The pre-history of our species is hag-ridden with episodes of nightmarish episodes of ignorance and calamity, for which religion used to identify, not just the wrong explanation but the wrong culprit. Human sacrifices were made preeminently in times of epidemics, useless prayers were uttered, bogus “miracles” attested to , and scapegoats, like Jews or heretics or witches - hunted down and burned. The few men of science and reason and medicine had all they could do to keep their libraries and labs intact, or their very lives safe from harm. Of course, when the evil had “passed over”, there were equally idiotic ceremonies of hysterical thanksgiving, propitiating whatever local deities may be.

One is usually told, as an unbeliever that it is old fashioned to rail against the primitive stupidities and cruelties of religion because after all, in the enlightened times the old superstitions have died away. Nine times out of ten in debate with a cleric, one will be told not of some dogma or religious certitude but of some instance of charitable or humanitarian work undertaken by a religious person. Our response is to issue a challenge: name an ethical statement made or action performed by a believer that could not have been made a non believer.

Against the insane eschatology with its death wish and its deep contempt for the life of the mind, atheists have always argued that this world is all we have, and that our DUTY is to one another to make the very best of it all. Theism cannot coexist with this unexceptional conclusion.

To be charitable, one may admit that the religion often seem unaware of how insulting their main preposition actually is. Exchange views with a believer even for a short time, and let us make the assumption that this is a mild and decent believer who does not open the bidding by telling you that your unbelief will endanger your soul and condemn you to hell. It will not be long before you are politely asked how you can possibly know right from wrong.

The working assumption is that we have no moral compass if we do don’t somehow in thrall to an unalterable and unchallengeable celestial dictatorship.

Religion was the human race’s first and worst attempt to make sense of reality. It was the best the species could do at a time when we had no concept of physics, chemistry, biology or medicine.

We did not know we lived on a round planet, that the said planet was in orbit in a minor and obscure solar system, which as at the edge of an unimaginably vast cosmos that was exploding away from it’s original source of energy.

We did not know that micro-organisms were so powerful and lived in our digestive systems in order to enable us to live, as well as mounting lethal attacks on us as parasites.

We did not know of our close kinship with other animals. We believed that sprites, imps, demons and djinns were hovering in the air about us.

It has taken us a long time to shake off the heavy blanket of ignorance and fear, and every time we do, there are self-interested forces who want to compel us to cower under it again.

Religion was our first attempt at philosophy, alchemy was our first attempt at chemistry and astrology our first attempt to make sense of the movements of the heavens.

All of these things cater to our inborn stupidity, and our willingness to be persuaded against all evidence that we are indeed the center of the universe and that everything is arranges and created with us with us in mind.

Let us grant the assumption that some “thing” was indeed present at creation and gave the order to let matter explode to let th evolutionary process begin here on the far away little blue planet.

On what authority can he hope to show that the original flying part of matter was set in motion with the object of influencing life on a minute speck of a planet , billions of years later, at the very margins of the whirling nebulae and amid the extinction of innumerable other worlds?

Isn’t id odd that religion, which continually enjoins an almost masochistic modesty upon us in the face of god, should encourage such an extreme and impossible form of self-centerdness and self-regard?

What kind of creator is so wasteful and capricious and approximate? What kind of creator is so cruel and indifferent?

And- most of all: what kind of designer or creator only chooses to reveal himself to semi-stupefied peasants in a remote desert reason?

Not even highly intelligent believers understand the “mind of god”.

The religious person claims to KNOW that this creative force is an intervening one who cares for our human affairs and is interested in what we eat and with whom and how we have sexual relations, as well as in the outcomes pf battles and wars. (Not to mention sporting games).

To be continued.

Cross posted from The Atheist Toolbox.

What Would Jesus Buy? (W.W.J.B.)

Everybody is out buying this and that for their kids, aunts, uncles, parents and other loved ones in preparation for the big event, Christmas.
Christmas in America has become a time of greed, and the ever inevitable arrogant assumption that all should celebrate by buying gifts. If you tell someone that you do not participate in gift exchanging at Christmas, they attempt to label you as cheapskate or an interplanetary alien. Read more

Creationist Fired, Sues

Nathaniel Abraham takes a job at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He then writes a letter to his boss, basically saying “I think evolutionary theory is wrong” and offers to work in the non-evolutionary areas of this evolutionary biology lab. Instead, his boss fires him.

Apparently, they already had a janitor.

Anyway, he is suing for $500,000, claiming he was a victim of religious persecution.

Let me get this straight: You’re hired to do a job. You tell your boss that you can’t do the job. What, exactly, do you think is going to happen?

I’m scouring the classifieds for church jobs…

Read More

Charlie Brown Christmas

This is a very simple post. Go to Newsday.com and look under the title of “Bah humbug to puny Christmas tree”. I am sure that I don’t even have to comment on this one, really. I have always heard that it isn’t the size that matters.

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