The Top One Reason Religion Is Harmful

Welcome to the wonderful world of Humanists; behaving morally and ethically and compassionately because it is the human thing to do, not because an invisible being will torture you for eternity if you don't.

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belief in God? There is a difference, you know!

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This country wasn't founded by Christians.

A Roman Catholic priest, Reverend David K. O’Rourke, said, “Every religious group in the United States is a minority group. Some may be unhappy with this status and wish they had official standing. I am not unhappy with it. The Catholic Church, the largest of these minorities, has prospered greatly in this country where we separate church and state.”

According to Reverend Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, "The Religious Right is still spreading misinformation about church-state separation and Robert Boston’s book (Why the Religious Right is Wrong About Separation of Church and State, Prometheus Books, 2003) debunks it. This book uses everyday language to explain why the Religious Right is wrong about separation of church and state."

According to Boston, “We have a vibrant, multifaith religious society that, with the exception of a few fundamentalist Muslim states, is admired all over the globe. We have a degree of interfaith harmony unmatched in the world. Our government is legally secular, but our culture accommodates and welcomes a variety of religious voices. New faiths take root here without fear...

“Americans remain greatly interested in religion and things spiritual—unlike their counterparts in Western Europe, where religion is often state subsidized but of little interest to most people....Children are no longer forced to pray in school or read from religious texts against their will, yet they are free to engage in truly voluntary religious worship whenever they feel the need. The important task of imparting religious and philosophical training to youngsters is left where it always belonged—with each child’s parents or guardians...

"Some European nations have passed so-called anticult laws aimed at curbing the rights of unpopular new religions. Such laws would not be acceptable in the United States or permitted under the First Amendment.

“In a multifaith society such as the United States,” observes Boston, “a type of religious marketplace does exist. Religious groups that aggressively seek converts, such as the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, are well aware that people in the United States are able and even willing to change their religious beliefs. To these groups, it’s well worth it to enter the marketplace and advertise their goods. Lots of people might buy them...

“Because the U.S. government is secular, religious groups are left to contend for members based solely on their own initiative. They create a free marketplace of religion that spurs competition and a vigorous religious life. This explains why the United States, which maintains church-state separation, retains a high degree of religiosity among its people.

“The more sophisticated and perceptive believers realize that the separation principle is a boon to their faith,” notes Boston. “They see danger in any attempt by government to decide which religion is true and which is false. They know that a faith that is in favor with the government today can be out of favor tomorrow. These believers are thankful for the free marketplace of religion and the secular state that makes it possible. They understand that the way to get new members is through persuasion, not government aid.”

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When I was a young lad, I became very religious. I believed in saints and prayer. I went to Mass on Sunday and that the bread and wine turned into the body and blood of Christ. Confession healed my sins and if I died with sins unconfessed, I would go to Hell.

Fast forward a few years and I became curious about other religions. Like many kids at that time, I became fascinated by Buddhism, Hinduism and New Age beliefs. You would find me at the spiritual section in the bookstore reading astrology or Sufi Wisdom. I believed they all had something to offer. Not any more.

Fast forward to today. Along comes the Internet and reality tv. No not the teenagers on a desert island trying to marry the serial killer bit rather, the Discovery Channel and the Learning Channel. One by one, I watched every woo-woo I believed in being debunked. Stigmatas, spontaneous compustion, incorruptibilty (of dead saints) among other things were all proven to have worldly explanations. I learned that people hear voices in their heads and see people and things that are not there. I also learned that people do things for other motives besides money, like Padre Pio sticking nails in his hands to fake the wounds of Christ.

On the Internet, I learned that every single guru, priest, mystic was hoarding money and sexually using their followers. Finally, I discovered people like James Randi and Penn and Teller who devote their entire lives to debunking bullshit. And they do it scientifically. To date, nobody has won Randi's Million Dollar Challenge (running since 1964).

So if the Enlightenment grew out of scientific discoveries made by Galileo and Newton, the so-called "New Athiest" movement grew out of the Discovery Channel and the Internet. Not to mention as a reaction by intelligent people to the Christian Right.

It is important to question EVERYTHING!!! Not just religion but also New Age bullshit. It's no good rejecting the Pope when you get up early to watch the Sun rise with the Dalai Lama (He's not the saint everyone thinks he is). You must question every homeopath, chiropractor, acupuncturist, hypnotist, psychic, astrologer, whatever. Finally, you must never replace religion with some personality cult like Scientology, Communism or Objectivism.

I could go on forever about this subject but let me leave you with this memory. When I was a kid, my parents taught me about respect for other religions (Catholicism being superior). Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims were simply other cultures with other ideas.

Yet, whenever I opened a book about Science or Astronomy (which I was fascinated by as a kid), I was immediately labeled a geek (when it was not cool). I was always told that Science was the source of all evil and it was not good for me to spend too much time reading about galaxies and quasars.
Better learn about the Baby Jesus and the Blessed Sacrament.

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That religion is entirely untestable. In fact, religions have a foundation in the real world, and that foundation IS testable.

For example, the christian concept of the trinity relies on a universal time line within an earth centered universe. This can be challenged since the earth is no longer considered as the center of the universe and that there is no absolute time line. Time is "relative" to the observer and isn't constant.

A christian fundy recently said that finding life beyond the earth (esp. intelligent life) would completely undo his view of the universe. If he knew more about astrophysics he would know that his world view has already been undermined.

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Actually, the same argument can be made concerning art and beauty. What's the big deal?

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I feel comfortable on this site criticizing uninformed opinions. It is clear that your position is uninformed and uneducated. Your statement of religion's "ultimate" dependency shows no interest in religion's claims and no familiarity with the current discussion taking place at advanced levels about the meaning of "religion."

I confess that is as far as I got in reading this article. Please familiarize yourself with Derrida's ACTS OF RELIGION and/or Mark Taylor's AFTER GOD. Both are written by philosophers who take religion seriously.

Enough with anecdotally based opinion, OK?

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Free thinking could more often lead a few individuals to act beyond common understandings of goodness to relatively great extents, but is less likely to cause large numbers of people to agree to act together in the significantly harmful ways. Religiously, culturally or socially conditioned masses are relatively more likely to act together in significantly harmful ways. Some conditioning is part of living in societies, and the potential for propagation of harmful conditioning is great only when society is not committed to critical examination of deeply held views, and accommodating those with significantly differing views (to a large extent).
Sincerely,
Aouie

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When they don't own that reality, that's when they become a menace to others and themselves.

It's perfectly fine to make shit up, as long as you [maintain the reality check and] own that: yes, you made shit up.

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Religion creates (THRIVES) on "Us ...and Them"

Good for the street, bad for the block.

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Most Americans are Scared Shitless By Muslim Fanatics Who They Think Want To Kill Them All...

Most Muslims live in Third World Countries. They Don't Have TV's and Have No Idea Who Americans Are -except when they come to Bomb and Shoot Them - Then They Shoot Back...

But They Have Absolutely No Capability Whatsoever To Attack America - well except by Farting After Eating a Curry.

The Idea That They Have Is a Complete Fabrication - By The US Military Industrial Complex - So They Have Somewhere To Let Their Bombs Off - and Steal Their Oil...

The Real Danger To America Comes From The Global Warming Religion...

This Has Been Ruthlessly Promoted By a Canadian Oil Billionaire - Maurice Strong... And The Movie Star Al Gore - Who Stands To Make a Fortune With His Mate David Blood - For His Company - Blood and Gore

The Objective is To Crash Western Civilisation...

Maurice Strong and His Club of Rome and CFR Mates Have Spelt It Out Quite Clearly On Numerous Occasions...

Meanwhile in The UK, House Prices Are Going Up - And The Economic Crash, Has Had Only a Very Small Effect on Most People...

The Objective Is To Crash America...

Now I have No Axe To Grind - I am Just Saying What I Think Is True.

In The UK - We Are Building Loads of New Nuclear Power Stations...

In America - All The Lights Will Be Going Out Soon - Because Your Environmentalists Won't Let You Use The Energy Beneath Your Feet.

And Yes I Have Seen The Temperature Graph Of The US For October - Which Shows The Entire Central Mass of The USA FREEZING with Its Coldest Temperatures Almost Ever in Recorded History...

But Expect Your Californian Global Warmers Who are Getting Pissed On From a Great Height - That It Is Getting Warmer Due To CO2

Tony

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There are many Muslims that love America. They should be given a chance to prove it. A Muslim judge, jury, and executioner should be in charge of punishing the five terrorists. A verdict of guilty and a sentence of death will restore our faith. A verdict of innocence will cause a mistrial, and an appointment of a Christian judge, jury, and executioner. Justice will then be served.

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In 1787 when the framers excluded all mention of God from the Constitution, they were widely denounced as immoral and the document was denounced as godless, which is precisely what it is. Opponents of the Constitution challenged ratifying conventions in nearly every state, calling attention to Article VI, Section 3: “No religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

An anti-federalist in North Carolina wrote: “The exclusion of religious tests is by many thought dangerous and impolitic. Pagans, Deists and Mohammedans might obtain office among us.” Amos Singletary of Massachussetts, one of the most outspoken critics of the Constitution, said that he “hoped to see Christians (in power), yet by the Constitution, a papist or an infidel was as eligible as they.”

Luther Martin, a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 wrote that “there were some members so unfashionable as to think that a belief in the existence of a Deity, and of a state of future rewards and punishments would be some security for the good conduct of our rulers, and that in a Christian country, it would be at least decent to hold out some distinction between the professors of Christianity and downright infidelity or paganism.” Martin’s report shows that a “Christian nation” faction had its say during the convention, and that its views were consciously rejected.

The United States Constitution is a completely secular political document. It begins “We the people,” and contains no mention of “God,” “Jesus,” or “Christianity.” Its only references to religion are exclusionary, such as the “no religious test” clause (Article VI), and “Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” (First Amendment)

The presidential oath of office, the only oath detailed in the Constitution, does not contain the phrase “so help me God” or any requirement to swear on a Bible (Article II, Section 1). The words “under God” did not appear in the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954, when Congress, under McCarthyism, inserted them.

Similarly, “In God we Trust” was absent from paper currency before 1956, though it did appear on some coins beginning in 1864. The original U.S. motto, written by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, is “E Pluribus Unum” (“Of Many, One”) celebrating plurality and diversity.

In 1797, America made a treaty with Tripoli, declaring that “the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” This reassurance to Islam was written under Washington’s presidency and approved by the Senate under John Adams.

We are not governed by the Declaration of Independence. Its purpose was to “dissolve the political bonds,” not to set up a religious nation. Its authority was based upon the idea that “governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” which is contrary to the biblical concept of rule by divine authority. The Declaration deals with laws, taxation, representation, war, immigration, etc., and doesn’t discuss religion at all. The references to “Nature’s God,” “Creator,” and “Divine Providence” in the Declaration do not endorse Christianity. Its author, Thomas Jefferson, was a Deist, opposed to Christianity and the supernatural.

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“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus,” wrote Thomas Jefferson. However, Jefferson admitted, “In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man and that other parts are the fabric of very inferior minds...” It was Thomas Jefferson who established the separation of church and state. Jefferson was deeply suspicious of religion and of clergy wielding political power.

Jefferson helped create the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786, incurring the wrath of Christians by his fervent defense of toleration of atheists: “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts as are only injurious to others. But it does no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” Jefferson advocated a “wall of separation” between church and state not to protect the church from government intrusion, but to preserve the freedom of the people:

“I consider the doctrines of Jesus as delivered by himself to contain the outlines of the sublimest morality that has ever been taught;” he observed, “but I hold in the most profound detestation and execration the corruptions of it which have been invested by priestcraft and established by kingcraft, constituting a conspiracy of church and state against the civil and religious liberties of mankind.”

Jefferson and the founding fathers were products of the Age of Enlightenment. Their world view was based upon Deism, secularism, and rationalism.

“The priests of the different religious sects dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight,” wrote Jefferson. “The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his Father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter...we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away all this...”

As late as 1820, Jefferson was convinced everyone in the United States would die a Unitarian. Jefferson, Madison and Paine’s writings indicate that America was never intended to be a Christian theocracy. “I have sworn upon the altar of God,” wrote Jefferson, “eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

In his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists, Jefferson wrote: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

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Similarly, in an 1824 letter to John Cartwright, Jefferson expressed anger at judges who had based rulings on their belief that Christianity is part of the common law. Cartwright had written a book critical of these judges, and Jefferson was glad to see it. Observed Jefferson, “The proof of the contrary, which you have produced, is controvertible; to wit, that the common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced, or knew that such a character had ever existed.” Jefferson challenged “the best-read lawyer to produce another script of authority for this judicial forgery” and concluded, “What a conspiracy this, between Church and State!”

As president, Jefferson put his “wall of separation” theory into practice. He refused to issue proclamations calling for days of prayer and fasting, insisting that they violate the First Amendment. As early as 1779, Jefferson proposed a bill before the Virginia legislature that would have established a series of elementary schools to teach the basics—reading, writing, and arithmetic. Jefferson even suggested that “no religious reading, instruction, or exercise shall be prescribed or practiced, inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination.” Jefferson did not regard public schools as the proper agent to form children’s religious views.

As president, James Madison also put his separationist philosophy into action. He vetoed two bills he believed would violate church-state separation. The first was an act incorporating the Episcopal Church in the District of Columbia that gave the church the authority to care for the poor. The second was a proposed land grant to a Baptist church in Mississippi. Had Madison, the father of the Constitution, believed that all the First Amendment was intended to do was bar setting up a state church, he would have approved these bills. Instead, he vetoed both, and in his veto messages to Congress explicitly stated that he was rejecting the bills because they violated the First Amendment.

Later in his life, James Madison came out against state-paid chaplains, writing, “The establishment of the chaplainship to Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles.” He also concluded that his calling for days of prayer and fasting during his presidency had been unconstitutional.

In an 1819 letter to Robert Walsh, Madison wrote, “the number, the industry and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state.” In an undated essay called the “Detached Memoranda,” written in the early 1800s, Madison wrote, “Strongly guarded...is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States.”
I
In 1833 Madison responded to a letter sent to him by Jasper Adams. Adams had written a pamphlet titled “The Relations of Christianity to Civil Government in the United States,” which tried to prove that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. Madison wrote back: “In the papal system, government and religion are in a manner consolidated, and that is found to be the worst of government.”

Madison, like Jefferson, was confident that separation of church and state would protect both the institutions of government and religion. Late in his life, Madison wrote to a Lutheran minister about this, declaring, “A due distinction...between what is due to Caesar and what is due to God, best promotes the discharge of both obligations...A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity.”

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I'm sorry that the world is so strange, but it is that way for me, at least, and for a whole bunch of us.

Getting the straight dope directly from the invisible beings and from inaudible voices actually works quite well. They're not corrupt. You don't pay them anything. The voices have no interest in putting the screws to the poor. If you want to be religious, talk and listen to them directly. That's what works best.

The prophets who don't take any money are usually quite honest. Trust them. However, the visions and speeches of anyone who gets fanatically rich off of his/her prophecies are quite suspect. Usually those people are the most readily available, because they advertise heavily. You don't get what you pay for.

Then on the bottom are military rulers who buy off their own religions. The classic is Caesar Augustus, who went and bought his own month, August, so he could be a god along with Janus, Mars, Mai and Juno. Julius Caesar also grabbed a good month, July.

The main evil in religion is that aoms military ruler has bought it off. Most religions have a hard time justifying killing, but the junta always needs more psychotic killers. So, Jesus may talk about "all who live by the sword shall surely die by the sword" but this gets ignored, and the army even hires its own trained chaplains to exhort the soldiers to fight harder.

Islam prohibits the killing of any other Muslim soldiers, even in battle. In past eras, the local Muslim military rulers really had to stretch this rule. They gelded many thousands of infidel boys, then paid them well, to create hireling armies of infidels to do the sultan's military bidding. Clever!

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There was this lady who's bakery business was going bankrupt and Oprah and some of her quacks were there to help. What I heard them say shocked me.

(Disclaimer: Oprah is about a year behind here in Ireland)

Now I expected advice on making her bakery more profitable or better advertising or something, ANYTHING!!

Instead, all they talked about was SPIRITUALITY!!! "You are still alive"!! "God's Plan", I couldn't listen anymore. But NO F**KING PRACTICAL ADVICE!!! NONE!!! If she's contemplating suicide, telling her she's still alive might be the worst thing imaginable to do. I was shocked.

The lady will probably get paid to appear on the show, and not open her mouth about the bullshit advice offered.

If I was in that studio at the time, I would have gone postal.

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Harm is done when people try to control what other should or should not believe or think. This whether one is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Pagan, Atheist, or whatever. What we look for is usually found within, but instead we try to project it on others.

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The guy across the street from me goes to church regularly... where he pious-lie prays to the almighty white male father sky-god man who rules Planet Over-Birth Earth from his throne in the dictatorship of heaven.

According to him (and the propagan-duh pundits on talk hate radio) it is always god bless Amerika... and to hell with all the other nations! Needless to say... my wacko neighbor supports our glorious [sic] troops... and all the glorious [sic] bombings and invasions in Iraq-nam, Afghanistan-nam... and Western Pak-a-nuk-nam.

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....quite frankly institutionalized mass psychosis

And their neurotoxic mind-poisonous tracks laid down early in life are VERY difficult to overcome

Ironically healthy personal spirituality is healing. But it takes some work to get there in our busy lives.

Dr. Rick Lippin
Southampton,Pa

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The Author’s argument is fundamentally flawed
The problem is you are trying to define religion and in a very arrogant, uninformed, and incorrect way.

“…scholars generally agree that writing a single definition that applies to all religions is difficult or even impossible, because all people examine religion with some kind of critical eye, and the term is therefore fraught with ideological consequences for anyone who might want to construct a universal definition. Talal Asad writes that "there cannot be a universal definition of religion ... because that definition is itself the historical product of discursive processes".[6] It is these processes themselves which make up the category we see today as "religion".”

You over simplify and try to define religion (which is one if not the most complex and diverse realms among humanity) in one sentence as “belief in supernatural entities. Without that belief, it's not religion.” And that…”Religion is ultimately dependent on belief in invisible beings, inaudible voices, intangible entities, undetectable forces, and events and judgments that happen after we die.”

I think your definition is biased and incorrect. Who are you to define religion? …Especially in such a simplified form. Although I agree that religion cannot hold to one definition I would lean more towards a description like the one below even though it is limited as well (found in Wikipedia):

A religion is a system of human thought which usually includes a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power,deity or deities, or ultimate truth.[1]

The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction. "Religion" is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system,"[2] but it is more socially defined than personal convictions, and it entails specific behaviors, respectively.

In this description the definition opens up to a much broader scale of human activity. I practice a religion that does not hold at all to your definition (More on my religion later). It does not have a god, it does not have a supernatural deity and it does not try to make up some farfetched story to explain things. It is a form of Buddhism and millions of people practice it. So what you are saying is because somehow you have decided upon the definition of religion, that what I and millions of other people practice isn’t a religion because it doesn’t fit your definition?

I beg to differ.

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The one basic argument sounds to me like one against basic science too; if I can't see it, measure it understand it right now, it can't exist. Do thoughts really exist? Or do we have to depend on secondary evidence of people telling the truth about what they think? Does a human will exist? Or do we have to try to measure by the choices we see people make? And can we prove that choices are free? Maybe they're all just the result of how we're programed. Rather than throw out the possibility of "unseen beings" existing, why not admit that we don't know or understand everything perfectly - especially from the start. "Religious people" (whatever that means) are all different persons with different mixtures of how they see things and how they live their beliefs, just like all other persons.

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None of the major religions ask you to think for yourself - you are supposed to take the word of some MAN.

Men and women are not created equal. The Y chromosome is a stunted version of the X chromosome. Intelligence and social skills are linked to the X chromosome because the man only has to stay alive long enough to reproduce - ultimately it becomes the woman's responsibility to feed the young and train them to become useful members of society, which requires a higher, more altruistic and subtly attuned state of being.

In order to amass wealth and power it becomes necessary to use force. While it is true that some male monkeys will band together and go raping and pillaging just like humans, in the long term this kind of behaviour is counter-productive, biologically speaking. In humans it became necessary to take the young males away from the women for programming with a new set of ideals. Thus were created armies and large temples with priests who maintained the new status quo.

When most people think of paganism, they have an image of dykes in draperies dancing in the moonlight and drawing pentagrams. The original paganism was something LIVED not based on ritual. Once we were in harmony with the seasons, the plants and the other animals. The menstrual period is light-sensitive and will naturally follow the lunar cycle.

But after thousands of years of being told they were weak and passive vessels for the manly seed - and treated accordingly - women forgot their inner nature. Biologically (not to mention emotionally) speaking, the loss of a child is devastating but religion and religion-based culture have the power to convince us that a soldier's death is the ultimate sacrifice(!), to say nothing of religions that force underage girls to marry.

War and religion go hand-in-hand. Both are extremely profitable except that, thanks to use of atheism to justify selfishness completely, we don't really need religion anymore but old habits die hard. We still need someone in a white coat to tell us what to do.

In reality each and everyone of us is capable of creating a meaningful relationship with the world around us ALL BY OURSELVES. You do not need an iman, a priest, a chaplain, witch doctor or shrink.

Definition of creating a relationship: talking and listening. Ultimately you do NOT know everything; accept this and be willing to learn. Life means both less and more than anything you could have imagined.

Peace.

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Yes, religion is a psychosis. But unlike the crazy homeless guy who hears voices from Saturn-based extraterrestrials telling him he is God and that his brain is controlled by an implant, religious people come to their beliefs because religion is (almost) forced on most of us. And in that way religion is even more dangerous than being schizophrenic. For, religion is confirmed to be "true" to its adherents by others who are also suffering from this conformists' psychosis. And it is made even more believable by supposedly-magic "Holy" books that "prove" what the truth is by their very existence-- "such and such is ABSOLUTELY true because the Bible says it is, PERIOD". Never mind that the Holy books were written by other conforming psychotics.

If religion wasn't dangerous -- not only to those victimized by terrorism or war in its name, but to those whose lives it has destroyed via the ignorance it instills -- then I would totally believe in a live-and-live attitude towards believers.
And, actually, I am tolerant of religion anyway, much more so than is justified and more so than what it would seem from this comment. But it should be stated repeatedly, religion is a mental illness. I don't think anyone should be forced to take their antipsychotics, true. But the religious should at least all be confronted with the fact that they are indeed ill.

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You say, "Religion is ultimately dependent on belief in invisible beings, inaudible voices, intangible entities, undetectable forces, and events and judgments that happen after we die."

This is completely wrong. what you are describing is not religion but psychopathy. This only describes religion done wrongly. Lacking meaningful context, this statement cannot make sense of even the experience of Joan of Arc.

Religion is ultimately about metaphor, symbol, analogy, imagery - shorthand for human psychological processes that affect and express the nature of our relationships with each other and with nature - how they are and how they should be.

You are talking about literalist relgious belief/practice - that is religion gone wrong. It is a perversion of religion. That's why it's so sick and why its practitioners are so sick in spirit.

Furthermore, a lot of things that pose or are represented as "religion" are completely fraudulent, only serving to justify and buttress deviant and criminal (mostly patriarchal) interactions - LDS, fundamentalism, Pentecostalism, Charlie Manson, Jimmy Jones, Heaven's Gate, Solar Cult, polygamists, the cult of Kali, Sun Myung Moon, etc. In that case what passes for religion is a complete fabrication, a fraudulent ideology constructed to support deviance of many different kinds.

You have to slice a lot finer than you are doing in your article. Context is everything.

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If the idea of religion is not just about belief in deities…because that is only a narrow western view of it…when you see it as more of a system of beliefs held by many people then the game changes.

In fact whatever people have faith in becomes a religion under that definition.
You have faith along with many people, that god doesn’t exist. At least this is what I assume from your article. While I agree with you, you cannot yet prove that concretely, just as someone who does believe in god cannot prove their belief concretely. But you have faith in this belief and the ideology surrounding it. Guess what… you are practicing a religion. To me, nationalism is a religion for some people; capitalism is a religion to some people as well. Whether misguided or not, many people put their faith and stake their lives on these institutions. And I would say that the evidence of their value is just as shaky as much of the evidence that many religions put forth.

Bottom line I believe is, whether you like it or not (and I am sure many atheist do not) you have faith in something. Even faith in nothing is faith. If you didn’t have faith, you would not be able to live. You have faith that when you take a bite of your lunch that you bought at the store it is not poison. You don’t test this but you believe it. You have faith that when you are driving through a green light that the light for opposing traffic is red. You can’t see the light but you bet your life on that knowledge that it is and the other cars will stop. The question and the battle is not whether you have faith, religion or a belief system (because every single human being on the planet does even if it is just their own religion), but rather the question is, is your particular brand useful and something that creates value. Religion is like a hammer… you can build a house with it or you can kill someone with it…. It all depends who is holding it. You attack religion but can you can’t deny that religion has helped to produce some of the most amazing human beings that have lived (MLK Jr. and Gandhi come to mind).

What you are arguing against, and rightly so, is the evil use of some religions in the hands of some people. But you are making the mistake of applying that to everyone and every faith, based on your uninformed definition of religion. I would ask what does you system of beliefs do for the good of humanity? Can you definitively prove those things?

An example in opposition to your argument: I practice Buddhism with the Soka Gakkai based on the teachings of Nichiren Daishonin. This Buddhism does not hold to any deity, or supernatural power, recognizes that the sutras of Buddhism are not real stories but more descriptions, in poetic and symbolic form, of the nature of life. It is based on the law of cause and effect and recognizes it as the fundamental law of the universe. (Cause and effect is also a scientific principle) It was created to help people come into rhythm with this law and thereby live happier, more fulfilling, and contributive lives. It is the largest peace organization in the world in terms of active members making consistent day to day efforts to promote peace, culture, and education. It does not rely on priests or made up stories, it does not encourage blind faith but instead promotes faith based on results and experience. It does not deny education or science but rather enriches it and encourages it to work for the good of humanity which often they have not done. In other words, my faith is living breathing evidence disproving your argument. I am not saying my practice is the only such religion or cases either, as I am sure many such systems of belief and faiths exist. My point is I think you need to rethink your definition of religion and your argument against it considering you have a religion as well under many other definitions of the word.

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Long before there was any formal religion, people had a need to believe in something larger than themselves. They worshipped and prayed to large trees, mountains, cloud formations, etc. They eventually erected buildings of all kinds that honored the gods whoever they were. Man then saw a way to 'cash in' and use the people's faith to control them. Even though knowing right from wrong seems to have been a natural part of the human character, the religious leaders took it upon theselves to reinforce their own rules. ALL religions were founded by and ruled by men. There's really nothing wrong with believing anything. Acting on it is a different story. Violence in the name of any god is wrong. So we have many formal religions founded by mortal men who create their version of a god. Pictures are painted, statues are carved and entire nations take their marching orders based upon legend. So religion is not bad. But people's behavior that is justified by what they choose to believe is very wrong. As for the books they refer to, seeing something in writing has always been very convincing. We should all be able to live with religious diversity. The breakdown of everthing in our country seems to have roots in someone's beliefs. But the religion is not wrong. It's the people. I guess they invented it for a reason. They're cashing in big time. ANNA

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My opinion: buried within every person is a psychopath capable of infinite cruelties, acting alone or especially acting as a group. (Test this working theory: it is infinitely more difficult to disprove universal psychopathy than it is to prove it.)

Religion may be our 1st effort to impose rules to keep the actual & latent psychopaths in check. Absolute rules require absolute authority – not people but gods – to establish the RULE OF LAW. As people evolved, religions evolved.

The next evolutionary step for religion is atheism. The evolutionary step beyond atheism is unknown (to me).

So here we are with a growing atheism movement, potentially as divisive Christians vs Lions. The most that an atheist can say is: ‘I don’t believe in your god’. Since most religions – seeing the writing on the wall – have consolidated their gods into one, that should be enough.

Adding: ‘Creation is unknowable’ may help to set the record straight. Unknowable creation means no god to please, placate, implore, grant wishes, or otherwise show favoritism. In other words, no perverse genie. If creation is discussed, it’s knowable, thus VOID. Work with that.

Atheism creates a gap. Fill it with …a striving to become human. Means every person has to think for themselves. Means every person has to develop their own ethics. Means every person has to strive to understand themselves. Atheism means individuality.

In the event atheism institutionalizes – as has religion – we go 2 steps back.

What’s missing so far in this comment is delicious self-righteousness. So here it is. You gotta tell the religious they can never join our group. No turncoats allowed.

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It is not very complicated. It is a true or false question: is there a god.Most human beings think yes. It does not mean they are right. I do believe in God. I do not think life "just happened". And
1. Likely this is inspired by the Fort Hood guy. This is unfair. There are many people like that, religious and not.
2. It is not true that religion requires people to suspend their minds or critical thinking. Most great scientists were believers in god: Einstein, Darwin, Newton.
3. And how do you know that only religious people are capable of evil things: war, mass murder, or evil. or that is cause and effect relation. In fact, of them were atheists.
4. Is religion useful? Most believers would not agree that they believe in god because it is a useful thing. This is the utilitarian arguments. That is not the why they are believers. The question to them is if it is true or false that there is a god.Fact or not as opposed useful or not.
5. There is too a spiritual life not in the realm of testability. There is beauty and love that you can not prove in a lab of science. Why do you like your mate and I do not?
So there is such a thing as a spirit, beauty and love and mercy. There is also ugliness and meanness...

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We must not believe in Greta Christina. She brings bad indigestion, and reading too much of her will cause the Mark of GC-- hair and zits will appear all over your body, and your speech will gibber out like Greta Christina's writing while your brain goes dead like Greta Christina's brain.

Beware, the mark of GC!

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Thomas Paine, wrote in The Age of Reason (1794), "The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion…Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is none more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to itself, than this thing called Christianity...My mind is my own church."

The early American feminist and vegetarian Elizabeth Cady Stanton observed that "the Bible…does not exalt and dignify women." Husbands are to rule over wives (Genesis 3:16), young girls are to be stoned (and not with marijuana, either!) for losing their virginity (Deuteronomy 22:20-21), women are subordinate to men (Ephesians 5:22-24), women must remain silent in the churches (I Corinthians 14:34-35), women are not allowed to teach or hold authority over men (I Timothy 2:11-14).

St. Augustine said, "Any woman who acts in such a way that she cannot give birth to as many children as she is capable of, makes herself guilty of that many murders." Martin Luther wrote: "God created Adam lord of all living creatures, but Eve spoiled it all. Women should remain at home, sit still, keep house and bear children. And if a woman grows weary and, at last, dies from childbearing, it matters not. Let her die from bearing; she is there to do it."

Even Pope John Paul II instructed women to go back to their traditional roles as "obedient and serving companions to their husbands," and refuses to have an audience with anyone advocating the ordination of women in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Encyclopedia still declares that women are inferior to the male sex, "both as regards body and soul."

The church of the past never considered human slavery to be a moral evil. The Protestant churches of Virginia, South Carolina, and other southern states, actually passed resolutions in favor of the human slave traffic. Human slavery was called "by Divine Appointment," "a Divine institution," "a moral relation," "God’s institution," "not immoral," but "founded in right." The slave trade was called "legal," "licit," "in accordance with humane principles" and "the laws of revealed religion."

New Testament verses calling for obedience and subservience on the part of slaves (Titus 2:9-10, Ephesians 6:5-9, Colossians 3:22-25, I Peter 2:18-25) and respect for the master (I Timothy 6:1-2, Ephesians 6:5-9) were often cited in order to justify human slavery. Some of Jesus’ parables refer to human slaves. Paul’s epistle to Philemon concerns a runaway slave returned to his master.

"Paul's outright endorsement of slavery should be an undying embarrassment to Christianity as long as they hold the entire New Testament to be the word of God," says contemporary Quaker physician Dr. Charles P. Vaclavik. "Without a doubt, the American slaveholders quoted Paul again and again to substantiate their right to hold slaves.

"The moralist movement to abolish slavery had to go to non-Biblical sources to demonstrate the immoral nature of slavery. The abolitionists could not turn to Christian sources to condemn slavery, for Christianity had become the bastion of the evil practice through its endorsement by the Apostle Paul.

"Only the Old Testament gave the abolitionist any Biblical support in his effort to free the slaves. ‘You shall not surrender to his master a slave who has taken refuge with you.’ (Deuteronomy 23-15) What a pittance of material opposing slavery from a book supposedly representing the word of God."

In 1852 Josiah Priest wrote Bible Defense of Slavery.

Every kind of social progress since the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment thus appears to contradict the Bible. May the secular state prevail.

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Religion came as a voice enforcing rules at the behest of the King or head of the hierarchy and becomes a privileged class. The law and religion seem to have come together. As such it is nationalistic and tribal and rewards those going off to war.
When religion goes international it gets much more tricky especially if they usurp the King.
Then they are a multi-national force on their own with their own god given rights.
We cannot have a world with territorial religions and Gods battling it out. It is a world of war and territorial instincts tied to ideological justifications, dogma, and rationalizations.
We must solve our mind-body problem and we must learn how to balance body and mind, Mind cannot be God of our bodies they must cooperate with each other.
Similarly our world is a wholistic system that has individual interdependent parts and the whole is the greater than the sum of the parts.
We must learn to harmonize our world.
Simliarly one might views the entire universe as a wholistic system where there is no inside or outside, it is a wholistic system of everything there is.

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Greta: good article, but you need to stop saying that it's not possible to disprove the existence of a god. This myth has been perpetrated by so many religions that we accept the idea that a god cannot be disproved. But just the opposite is true.


J.L. Mackie's "The Miracle of Theism" does just this. It is an incredible work of logic and reason. And it is an intellectually challenging work. But Mackie's genius is evident in every page and he unquestionably disproves the existence of a god. Take the time to explore this masterful work--and state confidently that gods do not exist.

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Not EVER

I Mean You Really Fancy a Girl and Eventually Start To Talk To Her..

You Don't Start Asking Her What Her Religion Is...

You Just Look at Her Sweet Smiling Face and Her Loveliness and Innocence As She Shyly Gives You a Hint What Lies Behind Her Beautiful Top and Her Hippy Skirt That Gapes Open - Not Realising..

No When She Asks You Into Her Bedroom To Fix Her Record Player...

You Look All Around Her Bedroom and The Hippy Jars Containing Seeds From Her Friends - And All The Images and Culture Which are Gifts From The People She Loves..

And You Are In Complete Heaven - This Angel Has Let You Into Her Bedroom In Her Home To Fix Her Her Record Player...

And THEN You See Her Record Colection...

And Realise That You Have Just Got To Play It Really Cool....

I Am a Bloke With Nothing - And She Is an Angel From Heaven

She Blew Me Away - A Few Months After I Met Her...

She Said Me and My Mates Are Going To STONEHENGE FREE FESTIVAL For The Summer Solstice

You Don't Have To Pay To Get In

I Said Aren't I invited ? (I was on the dole at the time having lost my job)

So We Borrowed Her Sister's Play Tent

Our 21 Year Old Son - Just Asked Me - How Can I Configure This...

I Said I Think I Have The Bits To Do This But What You ARe Asking Is Extremely Unusual...##

I Didn't Have The Bits To Do It - But Together We Drew The Connections In The Air...

And Said - Well You Can Try Maplins If You Want - But To Be Honest - I Think You Need To Get Your Soldering Iron Out...

I am Quite Chuffed With Him Actually

Sure He is Just a Kid And Makes Mistakes...

But After 3 Months The Postman Said...

It's Not There Anymore - Your Lad Must Have Done It...

A Couple of Months Before The Postman Asked - Is Your Lad a Car Mechanic???

I Replied - Not Yet - But He Will Be By The Time He Gets This Twisted Piece Of Junk Back On The Road

British Racing Green 0-60 in ^ Seconds

Tony

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The biggest challenge facing atheists/agnostics/humanists/skeptics/etc in approaching religious people, is, as mentioned, they give their authority figures a disproportionate amount of power, because, in their belief system, trusting is more important than questioning.

When I have people telling me over and over again that Hitler was an atheist, I want to scream. Apart from the numerous references in Mein Kampf of doing "god's work by exterminating the Jews," he also proclaimed himself a Roman Catholic for life.

That is merely one tiny detail of misinformation that threatens our ability to reason logically with these people.

We CAN'T reason with them for three reasons...

1. Their religion views reasoning in and of itself to be counter-productive to the will of their invisible god.

2. They, more often than not, receive false information from unreliable sources and turn around and profess it to be true (the hitler thing, and countless other things).

3. They are afraid. Afraid of doubt. Afraid of (and repulsed by) the seeming confidence of an atheist. Afraid of burning in hell. Afraid of being wrong.

Let me tell you something about that 3rd point...
Let's say Christianity is right. Let's say I die and go to hell, and spend all eternity there. Why didn't I just insure myself against such an eternal nightmare by believing in Christian doctrine?

1. Because I view Christian teachings as immoral, including material in the old and new testaments.

2. Because I don't think it's fair to condemn me to suffer for not obeying rules that I view to be immoral.

3. Because even if I DID make it to heaven, I would still feel pity for all the people who were sent to hell, and pity is something that the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god seems incapable of delivering.

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I Thought I Can Either take This Further at Santa Pod...

I Was 25 Years Old and Completely Addicted To The G-Force Of Power In My Body Through Acceleration...

I Looked at Myself In The Mirror

And I Said To Me - If You Continue Like This - You Are Not Very Likely To Make 30 Years Old

So I Sold My Motor Bike and Sports Car and Bought an Even Faster Sports Car Instead

(This Was All From Money - I Earned Myself - No Rich Mummy or Daddy)

And Took Up Gliding

And Flew Upside Down

The G-Forces Where Phenomenal - Experiencing Negative G Upside Down a Few Feet Above The Earth - Is Far More Fun Than Killing Youself On a Motor Bike - Or In a Sports Car...on a Drag Strip

So I Took Up Diving With Manta Rays and Sharks In The Maldives Instead - Much Safer

Both Our Kids Are Like Fishes - Got Their Pro Diving Certificates Under-Age - Well My Daughter Did - My Son Will Not Break Any Rules...

They Both Grew Up Seemingly Hating Each Other - Brother and Sister in Competition...

But They Are Great Diving Buddies - None Of Their Boyfriends Or Girlfriends Know Much More Than Getting Their Heads Wet

My Origins - Terraced House - Oldham Lancashire
Born In Boundary Park Hospital - Right Next To Oldham Athletic Football Club

ENGLAND

Tony

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until we tax the churches and all religions the same way we are taxed they will never give up their cash cow , tax exempts.

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Yes Louise Brown The World's First Baby to be conceived by in vitro fertilisation, was born In The Same Hospital As Me 25 Years Later...

But It Had Fuck All To Do With Me - Though I May Have Wanted To Shag Her Mum

If I Had - She Wouldn't Have Needed any IVF

Tony

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"Religion is ultimately dependent on belief in invisible beings, inaudible voices, intangible entities, undetectable forces, and events and judgments that happen after we die."

Funny how so many people in America think that christianity is the only religion in existence. Guess that's because Americans don't travel or have access to maps. Miss Teen South Carolina was right!

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Great, another article by Greta Christina.

Religion bad, blah, blah, no room for moderates, blah, blah, preaches to choir, blah, blah, alternet atheists go wild.

Tell me if you have heard this before?

Please, Greta when you get a new idea write a new article. This horse has been beaten to death.

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But It is a Beautiful Old House - Much Bigger Than Ours...

But That Was Not The Main Attraction

The Garden Is Absolutely Enoromous

But I thought I Couldn't Quiet Afford It - But We Knew and Know The House Really Well - Cos They Ask Us To Look After Their Cats...When They Are Away On Holiday

And Well - They Have Still Got The House - But Probably Have a Completely Horrendous Mortgage..

And Today My Wife Saw This Guy Up This Enormous Ladder - Clearing The Ivy From The House...

But There Were No Vans Around...

And She Was About To Shout Up To Him

Hey Mate Do You Want To Do Ours Too - How Much?

And Then She Realised It Was The Mayfair Banker Who Lived There Who Was Clearing The Ivy Off His Own Home..and as it was pissing down with rain She was too embarrassed to ask him...

Will You Do Ours Too?/

We Paid Off Our Mortgage - When I Left.

The Rat Race

It is Our Home Now...

I Have Cut Out All The Roots...

But I Don't Do Ladders - Well Not That High

I Might Look 35 - But I am an Old Man Now

Tony

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The reason why so many religions have become harmful is that they have divorced themselves from spirituality. Spirituality is relating to, consisting of, or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material.

While the terms spirituality and religion are sometimes used interchangeably, an important distinction exists between them.

Traditionally, religions have regarded spirituality as an integral aspect of their religious experience and have long arrogated spirituality for themselves; claiming true spirituality cannot be experienced by the secular (non-religious).

Declining membership of organized religions in the Western world, however, has given rise to a broader view of spirituality. Those who speak of spirituality outside of religion often define themselves as "spiritual but not religious" and generally believe in the existence of many different "spiritual paths" -- the emphasis being on the importance of finding one's own individual path to spirituality.

According to one poll, some 24.4 percent of the U.S. population now identifies itself as "spiritual, but not religious."

The fact is, spirituality can survive very well without religion, but religion cannot survive without spirituality.

Without spirituality, religion is nothing but dogma -- and increasingly destructive fundamentalist dogma, at that. Atheism is even more fiercely divorced from spirituality and is just as dogmatic and harmful as religious fundamentalism.

Indeed, religious fudamentalism and atheism are two sides of the same dogmatic coin, as far as I'm concerned. Fundamentalism takes an all-too-rigid view of the Universe and atheism flatly denies the existence of any reality beyond the physical realm.

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We already pretty much get the idea that Greta Christina hates religion. I figured I was going to have to write in to complain about how Alternet should give the angry hyper-atheist shit a rest, but then I actually bothered to read this article. The fact is that the author is right about most of the unpleasant by-products of religion. I am not even going to try to say otherwise, but I will make the following few points:

1. I am Catholic, so if you think religious people are all stupid all the time, stop reading now because you irritate me.
2. Belief in the invisible does insulate religion from criticism, but, contrary to the author's contention, that is not unique to religion. Communism is (was?) the same. In a way, capitalism is the same. It tells us to be a cog in the wheel, that the moral implications of our actions are immaterial or at least are not our responsibility, and that there is no other legitimate alternative. We take it on faith that our economic system serves our needs even if we do not have that personal experience. Just like religion, capitalism trumps tangible reality.
3. The belief in the supernatural which the author is hung up about is a detail. Other belief systems with different foci do damage. Anyone who believes in anything that they do not fully understand is liable to manipulation. 99% of the readers of this web site don't know shit about how an electron microscope works, but they accept a view of the physical world which presupposes the accuracy of that amazing instrument. I know that electron microscopes work, but in a precise, scientific way, I really don't. I'm just a lawyer. I could be manipulated into believing a falsehood by faked microscope pictures.
4. In my own view, every single human is "religious" in the sense that we either have a belief system or we go insane. Atheists cannot cope with this reality, because, like religious fundamentalists, they too often (OK not always) lack the intellectual humility to recognize that they do not have a lock on a complete understanding of the universe.
5. ...which brings me to my last point: there is something dumber than believing in invisible beings, and that is believing that you actually totally understand the workings and purpose of the entire universe - that there are no unknowns. This kind of belief animates both religious and atheist fundamentalists alike. They are brothers in intellectual arrogance. Even the small corner of the universe that we can observe does not fit inside the skull of one man.

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The author makes good points. Moreover, religion is the 'gateway drug of lunacy': it relegates the 'inculcated believers' to a life of non-critical thinking. And thereby, equally ridiculous beliefs such as nationalism and patriotism become easy to swallow--isn't it amazing that in just a few weeks of basic training formerly peaceful young men can be turned into psychopathic killers? This must in part be attributed to early religious training.

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism--how passionately I hate them! --Albert Einstein

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If I have to give into the arguments of Rene Descartes and Saint Thomas Aquinas that God really exists, then I must conclude that the great God is somewhat like a cat.
He is so great, he took a dump and kicked dirt over it. Life sprang forth from the fertilized soil, but God never looked back.
This is a fictitious God that matches the observable reality.

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Just want to make sure I'm understanding the thrust of your point.

Also, I should probably register my disagreement. Like all other things that people act foolish, hateful, violent, and/or genocidal over, the real issue is ignorance. It's what makes individuals kill each other over class, nationality, religion, skin color, et cetera.

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Political Correctness is a religion...You God haters are OK with Allah.

Mohammad had a 6 year old wife, but waited till she was 9, to consummate...He was poisoned by the Jewish widow of one of Mo's murder victims.

The PC will protect the lie to their deaths and their dying thoughts are to hate us. LOL!

Please have a look at The Religion Of Peace. A whole gallery of joy, here. I'll probably get tossed off here because of this.

Truth doesn't set narcissists free, it kills you.

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Gallery/16.htm

Islam sanctions sex with children, murder and suicide. At least there are laws against what Catholic priests do.

Homosexuals are stoned to death, hanged or beheaded in Muslim countries...The disease that most atheists suffer from, is Pathological Narcissism.

Our country was founded by mostly Freemasons, then we became a Christian and Jewish one.

If you speak out against Islam, you are put to death. Communists, in every one of their countries kill Christians...So do Muslims.

Communists have killed about 300,000,000 people, NOT IN WAR!

Pol Pot killed more than 2ice as many in 5 years, than America has lost in her history.

http://www.dadi.org/hysteria.htm
A Culture Dissolving In A Bog Of Feminist Hysteria..

An intriguing analogue to the feminist hysteric is the homosexual activist. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), within the hysterical context, has also said that "in both sexes overt behavior is often a caricature of femininity." Given that most reputable scholars and specialists agree that homosexuals represent about 2-3% of the population, they share with the histrionic population an equivalent niche.

The ridiculousness of the Feminist poseur would be laughable if the culture were not allowing itself to be intimidated into submission. If there is anything the Feminist cannot tolerate, it is humor (except male bashing) or truth, especially if it challenges their incantations. What is most telling about Feminism and its media collaborators are the stories that don't see the spot light of wide coverage: Pro-Life Activist Stabbed Outside Abortion Clinic; Hiv-Positive Teacher Raped Boy, 9; Planned Parenthood Sex Manifesto Promotes 'Fun' to Youth.

Basically...Yin got a restraining order on Yang, which is resulting in a Black Hole.

Masculinity is a disease in the Western World.

Here is what Paul wrote to the Romans, several years after Jesus was crucified.

29being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are (Q)gossips,

30slanderers, (R)haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, (S)disobedient to parents...

Why do you hate us so bad? Why don't you direct some of your venom to the Muslims, who hate and kill EVERYBODY?

It's a rhetorical question. You are incapable of having bad feelings toward evil. You only despise good people...

Most narcissists I know, would really love to see 911s, each week...This, from self loathing, and not being able to place blame with the person or persons who abused you as children. It's visceral. It's not a choice. Your choice was made for you, when evil overcame you.

Proverbs 29... 10 Bloodthirsty men hate a man of integrity and seek to kill the upright.

11 A fool gives full vent to his anger,
but a wise man keeps himself under control.

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There you go again Greta...speaking as though you have knowledge. So much do you believe that you, with a finite human individualitic (ie. particularistic, non-absolute) perspective, can take in all reality and begin making assertions of the nature of reality as though you are fit to do so. Then you have the further gall to say "Any other ideology or philosophy or hypothesis about the world is eventually expected to pony up. It's expected to prove itself true and/or useful, or else correct itself, or else fall by the wayside. With religion, that is emphatically not the case. Because religion is a belief in the invisible and unknowable -- and it's therefore never expected to prove that it's right, or even show good evidence for why it's right -- its capacity to do harm can spin into the stratosphere."
Did you ever consider, Greta, that your philosophy is a hypothesis about the world? Let's see if it can pony up:
Atheism - negation of theism. Atheism has no God of Order, design, purpose, meaning, morality (whether good and evil even exists). Its foundations in the chance void are by definition, irrational random chance. Atheism has no basis for rational debate. You accuse theists of not having a philosophical foundation. "Judge not lest you be judged."
You, Greta, and other atheists, are the ones who have spun your beliefs out of the stratosphere for you have no foundation for debate and asserting truth claims. Does truth exist Greta? Is logic real? Even against the backdrop of the chance void of which your supposed 'rationality' is a product? The Bible is the foundation to truth in that it describes the world as it really is. It provides a philosophical foundation for order, design, purpose, meaning, morality that is coherent, consistent, and nonarbitary: the hallmarks of whether a philosophy succeeds or fails. Yours fails miserably. That's okay. You are not in bad company. Philosophers throughout history were dumbfounded in trying to develop a philosophy that is coherent, consistent, and nonarbitary. To my knowledge, none of them, however, would stand for the insult of finding their starting point in the chance void of atheism. Not even David Hume was that ridiculous. Don't let your false religious views about reality hinder you, and undercut your ability to even debate the issue rationally. Search for a better philosophy Greta. You don't pony up and you don't measure up. I'll be glad to discuss with you how Christian theism does provide the foundation to thought, metaphysics and ethics. It is the only philosophy to do so. Amazing book is that Bible. "You shall know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free."

Carl

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