“McCain is a Good Christian…

with family values and Obama is a Muslim. That’s all I need to know.” Wow. Read more

Open and Ready to Rock

We are happy to announce that Reason VS Faith is currently online and ready to go! The home page is fully functional with more coming down the pipe soon. Be sure to head on over and let us know what you think.

PS~ We are still looking for theists to author on RvF. If you ar interested, please use the contact form at the RvF site. Thank you!

Atheism & the Rationality of Deism

We want to avoid saying beliefs when talking about Atheism. Why are we afraid to label our non-belief as a belief? Because when you label something as a belief or belief system there are some negative connotations that come alongside it:

• The stench of religion
• The erasure of individuality
• Group Morals
• Easily Manipulated Political Agendas

All that being said, I find it illogical to place those without firm beliefs in any category. How can you slap a broad label on millions of individuals with completely different viewpoints? You shouldn’t, but as many of you know; it happens everyday. You wouldn’t label “not collecting stamps” as a hobby or “bald” as a hair color, but it would seem as though many others may not have the same scruples doing similarly. Are there any associations or assumptions that can be made about those which do in fact remove God from the equation of existence? The lack of religious belief is the lack of the Arguments from Supreme Authority which attempt to interfere in even the most personal and private pieces of our lives; instilling guilt and fear. There is no absolute about any group. There are exceptions to everything it seems. Just because one is an atheist does not even guarantee that they accept any scientific explanation of anything.

One could dismiss it all and remain content with the understanding that we cannot know or trust in ill-motivated and government owned men. We can hope at least that there are enough checks and balances and the requirement of verifiable evidence to protect us at some levels from the establishment. There is no way to know at this time what occurred prior to singularity, but surely even this must have originated somewhere. Perhaps it is my limited understanding of this topic that makes this such an unattainable answer. Perhaps it is because it cannot be positively known. And if religions are correct, perhaps it is not for us to know. If you consider this life an experience, and an opportunity to learn the difference of good and evil than philosophically you can rest easy. If you assume that everything will be explained upon death, than the now might just become more important because you realize that you will have eternity for cosmic pursuits. The now could be spent doing good for your fellow humans in the now and for the future. There are a few issues I have with this method of thinking as well.

Whether you admit it or not you are making assumptions. Religions, holy scriptures are all tainted by man. Men with motivations for power and control. As a lowly peon you are not privyed to truth. You are force-fed what is determined you can handle, because you are stupid and irrational; like stampeding buffalo. Who is to know what is real and what is manifested in our best interest? As one who has not researched all areas of discovery first hand, I could not with all honesty tell you I am certain of anything. I have not witnessed the birth or death of a star, galaxy, nebula firsthand. I have not reconstructed the human genome or split atoms in the storage room of my third floor apartment. I accept that I simply do not have the time or ability to encompass all areas of understanding in my lifetime. There are too many societal pressures that do not allow for a life of exploration and understanding. Here in the now we must focus on where we are and where we are going. America could eat you alive. Ask our homless millions. The forgotten and ill-labeled. The used and spent. The erased.

My Christian roots have certainly affected my way of thinking. A total disconnect has certainly not occurred for me. A desire for immortality, the need for greater meaning and importance still haunts me. Perhaps my thinking is too expansive because I require something more. If you consider existence at such an expanded perspective it is easy to feel small. If even our Universe must die than all pursuits are ultimately futile. But we do not exist on a timescale that large. In existence as we know it humans encompass less than 1%. But you could examine things from an alternative perspective. We are the universe. The same particles that have inhabited and explored the universe are within us all. Stardust. Organic elements such as carbon(from methane) carried here on comets whose reach stretch throughout our galaxy and farther are within us. When we die we shall return to such simpler places to perhaps become a piece of something or someone else. We become our parents because we are in some sense our parents, we are but an abberated clone of the combination. No matter how we attempt to disconnect ourselves from who our parents and even our society are we cannot escape because we are at some level, the same.

Deism, the belief in a god outside of religion. A personal relationship with whatever force is responsible for our creation, and what we are ultimately a piece of. To some degree this way of thinking is still illogical, because we cannot know. There is no verifiable evidence or any logical method with known evidence to assume that a creator exists. Where understanding stops, god is born. The problem is where in the chain, the equation, is god necessary? The more we know, the more we realize how little we truly know. The god concept, as far as I can tell, is the imagination of man in full effect. Internal debates wage inside many of us. Logic and desire conflict and struggle to overcome one another. Personally, there is no way to be 100% sure of anything; but as long as we remember to practice altruism and remember that we are just a piece of the whole we may just make our ignorance a little easier to tolerate. Irrationality on a theological or philosophical level is irrelevant unless it leads you to negative interactions with your fellow human. None are valid. All are valid. What’s the difference?

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

RvF: Progress Report

As most of you know, our project, Reason VS Faith is in development.  How’s it coming along? Great, thanks for asking! The design is moving right along (as some of you that have gotten a sneak peak have seen). Now, I will be concentrating on the inner workings of the site. Here is what we have so far.

There will be two administrators (or moderators, if you will), one for each side of the discussions. We want this site to be as balanced as possible. As the site grows, we will add more moderators.

Each author will have their own RvF email address, so as to not plug up their personal email addresses with site related emails. (Gets annoying, really.  Especially when your name is Darque and you write a post that gets over 45 comments in a night…)

There will be a “Meet the Press” page with the authors’ blurb and a picture, if they wish to have it posted.

What would you like to see? Do you want a forum included in the site? Now is the time to bring up the wishlist!

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.

Reason VS Faith: The Next Adventure

TJM will remain as it is; a place for atheists and agnostics to post their thoughts and essays. Anyone is permitted to comment but it will be run by AA’s and the posts will be from the perspective of AA’s.  I have received requests for a more open site that has a balanced group of authors from both sides of the fence; atheists and theists. Read more

AskMeHelpDesk.com

Yippee! This is yet another forum where we can let our voices be heard. There are many other cool things on there as well, but I joined a couple of days ago and if nothing else it’s driving traffic to our site, just like some of the people on that site say. A lot of the talk about Luci’s issue is whether or not it’s legit, and I can understand their concern. However, I, as well as Luce and Rival, are trying to impress upon the readers there that this isn’t a ploy for Luci to get money nor is it something that we are using to get people to our site. Let’s get over there and give all the information that we have. The more the merrier!!

In My Own Words…

Hey folks.

I’m Luci’s son who was mentioned in the post To Be Deported For Voting. Firstly I really wanted to thank everyone for all the help and support you’ve given to me and my folks, you will never know how much it means to us. Read more

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

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