Do Atheists Have God All Wrong?

... and don't buy the book.

Was it worth reading 5 pages to get to the comment section? The problem with unrelenting intellectualism is that we don't live in an ivory tower. Let's talk about facts.

Christianity is sharing that same tower when it ties itself into apoplectic knots over the fact that "son of man" is a phrase used over 200x in the bible - as an ancient semitic expression meaning of "human" or "Self" - but (really!)means something completely different in the new testament.

Speaking of subversive subjectivists I've been to the After Life - kind of like flying through a mandelbrot animation but not really - and of course I've also put in my 40 days in the wilderness and my time in jail "til the sun go down" - but that's not the point.

The whole point of existence is to do something with it.

Here is a slightly more interesting read:

Mathematics and the Psychedelic Revolution

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In order to argue against and defeat the theists' religious construct, atheists are often forced to fully immerse themselves within the pie-in-the-sky theist doctrine - an enormously imaginary fiction hardly based on provable historical facts - and when deist language is used, the effort soon becomes a labor of extracting themselves unstained from the poisonous rhetoric emanating from a most violent, obsessive, racist, and paranoid Christian faith.
--------
Aside from the article, let me get a shot in against Christianity ((but really, most religions, too...))

Christianity historically, has been by FAR, a warrior's religion - which belies (or, contradicts) it's own premise of PEACE!!

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The strangest thing about religious folk is that they are typically ignorant of the very history of their own faith - this of course saves them untold amounts of embarrassment by keeping them from looking at factual contradictions inside their own narrative.

Religions are social systems designed primarily to organize communities, power grids, and narrative control.
All sensations of identity are defined by narrative --

Oddly, religions seem to have very little interest in Mysticism which seems to exist outside of systems of thought and definition, and clansmanship; and here lies the whole conundrum: Mystics are the inspiration behind all religions and religions seem to be designed to prevent the individual mystical experience from being realized.
(Put it another way: whether or not Jesus existed, one thing is sure - he did not create Christianity.)

Carl Jung described the concept of God as "the perfect invention of the mind to prevent humanity from spontaneously reaching mystical transcendence."

We need to move the whole debate about Atheism far beyond the puny and unsophisticated regions in which it currently dwells; this business about whether or not there is a God is for the birds.
The morons controlling the discussion are keeping everyone in the dark, and the reality facing us is far more complex and mind-boggling than these pro and anti-faith gibberish-mongers would have us know.

Humanity needs to leap into discussions about consciousness and its mind-bending looking-glass parameters, and be done with the meaningless nonsense.

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There's nothing else to be.

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“It isn’t believing certain things but rather living a certain sort of life that makes a person religious.”

And doesn’t that open a can of worms?!

But the really fascinating thing about ‘christians’ is that they believe that god made the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh.

Now I don’t know about anybody else, but the thing that really gets up my nose is being disturbed on my day off. So if we assume that this god is a creature of habit, why the hell would you set about annoying him on his day off?
The sabath. And if you think that well, he can just tune we christians out, collectively so as we do not disturb him, then why bother in the first place?

I would think the time to god bother would be on any day but the sabath!

Of course I find the concept of their being a god, loving, caring, vicious, brutal, indifferent or anything else, absurd.

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And still you tell me nothing about what you Believe.
Are you denying the existence of a Personified Supreme Being? Or are you denying the possiblity of a Supreme Connective Force?
Atheists in their own way admit they 'beleive' in a Supreme being by making such a fuss about 'His' Non existence.
Instead of outright dismissing the assumption, Atheists concede this point, many times without even thinking.
Others play into it because it is the easist method of attack- laying in wait for the Santa Clause believer.It's Not just intellectually dishonest,but cruel.
An Honest and Intellectually fair Atheist would first begin their debate by stating they do not accept the Personified Concept. Then see if the 'Faithful' is capable of discussing the topic beyond that limitation. Otherwise youmight as well be debating a six yr old on the existence of Santa, or boogymen. To them they exist.
And any person who has a sense of Reverence for 'all that is' should be able to move on and debate the topic on that level as well.
Science has not provided a Clear definition, nor has the 'Holy' book really.
Debate in it's most pure sense, begins with Logic and logic hinges off the requirement that the statments be considered True or accepted by both, to begin with. No doubt this can lead to some false conclusions- but at least the components leading up to it are correct.
As much as a 'Faithful' should be able to 'prove' their concpet of 'God' existence without this assumption, so should the atheist.
I'm a Monotheist, One Supreme Force connecting all the various elements in the Universe and that keeps things operating in a functional manner. String Theory to you scientific types.
So do I have any Atheist ready to discredit my belief in "God" (my anagram, my nickname)?
Just because some one uses a personifiying term to refer to something does not mean they actually Believe it possesses Personhood. How many people refer to their Genitals in some personifying manner "He/She", even give it a name. Would you bother entering a debate over it's Conscienceness and 'powers', if you had to agrue with this intellectual arm behind your back? You would be considing that the penis/vagina had power of the person.
And Socrates did not have answers, he taught his student the art of mental dissection and gymnastics on unanswerable topics- Mind/Body which controls the person? What he did not tell his students was that they are unaswerable because it was never a matter of Either/Or, but both.
so tell me Atheist What 'plunks' the strings on the Instrument,and what is the 'instrument'(Dark energy/Dark matter)?
And To ask "Where did the elements of the Big Bang come from" of the atheist is as legitmate as asking a 'Zeus' believer, where did "He/She"?
Anderson is absolutely correct- "I dont' know" is a perfectly valid answer by both Believers and Atheists. In fact it shows a higher level of reverence for 'God' and/or Science. so the quest continues to understand as much as we can about bothwhich may very well be One in the same. Mind and Body work together thus they are One entity comprising a Person.The mind is the Unseen that animates the physical, and the physical is the means by which the Metaphysical is able to interact with it's surroundings. Otherwise both would be in a state of inertia.

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Troy Jollimore's article is an excellent atheist apologetic against the careless thinking of Karen Armstrong.

Armstrong is a worthy opponent for atheist apologetics. Although she is far from the hordes of unsophisticated believers and rabid religionists, she still must be confronted.

Troy's disputations with Karen take the debate about god/belief/religion to a high level.

We're far from the imagery of two sweaty wrestling hulks in the arena: The Atheist vs. the Believer.

Troy's polite Cambridge Faculty Club-style smackdown of Karen's views nonetheless makes him the anti-Tertullian of atheism and gives more aid and comfort to non-believers like me.

Apophaticism as a defense of theism is the last clever, but desperate trope of the losing side of the Grand Debate. That Troy administered the coup de grace with decorum makes it all that much sweeter.

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Christopher Hitchens, former Bush Administration cheerleader for the Iraq war and all around twat.

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THAT is a great quote.

I'm beginning to think that the surest sign of a closet conservative is the displayed desire to control others. Conservatives think that they know better than most people, even down to how people should handle their diets, their votes, their religion. This is a big problem in our culture, but it is obviously not limited to Republicans. When Americans see difference, too often we're making it synonymous with inferiority, and a need to straighten out the different one, because we think they so obviously need it. A mountain of false presumptions needs to exist to make that wrongheaded urge possible, and it's all arrogant. Believers aren't dumber than you, atheists. Bill Moyers is inferior intellectually to the blogger who openly wants to program her thoughts into others through her blog and articles here? She's smarter than Martin Luther King, Jr.? Or Ralph Waldo Emerson? Too bad in her endless "conversations" with believers (or tropes?) she doesn't pick a terrific adversary. And one with the passion she has.

Believers aren't dumb and in need of control. Omnivores aren't ignorant. Democrats don't vote thoughtlessly. Of course, what fun is it to assume all other beings are, at least from an initial standpoint, equal, thoughtful, having researched the important topics in ours lives, and live in an informed manner? If that's the assumption, facile arguments are ruled out immediately. Do we actually prefer facility, and stick with it out of our own preferences?

Anyone remember the part in Steinbeck's East of Eden where the dowser's son goes off to college and writes letters to his mom about his new-found atheism, and how she needs to embrace it? The father responded something to the effect that he'd have been disappointed if his son (the only lazy, rather useless member of a large, enterprising family) had not discovered atheism at college, but he was wasting his time on his mother. Something to the effect of, "Her faith is a mountain, my son, and you don't have a teaspoon yet."

Thinking you arrived at the final, correct place isn't enough. You have to become worthy. It's a huge task to think you can straighten out people. You need way more than a teaspoon. Maybe a medieval-type quest should come first; you know, tests and challenges and service. Maybe a few years of tests and challenges and service would be education enough to cause one to give up the zeal, and live and let live.

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and creative and alive and endlessly spiritual. The correct "answer" is nothing more than an attempt to control others and to assume power.

All we have to do is observe the joy and wonder of children as they simply ask "why?", "how?", "what?" and ponder the variety of responses they get. Watch how quickly they learn and then how this deteriorates as we stifle the curiosity about life with insistence they simply repeat the correct "answers" supplied by a religion, ideology, or bureaucrat (or talk-show host.)

Thou shalt ........... or you will be forever condemned to some form of Hell or another. And I know! Fer sure!

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There are some interesting discussions going on over religion. Most of the ones I find are not in the realm of popular conversation. The one represented by this article is both pop and interesting. Yes, Armstrong is an apologist for traditional religion; it’s what sells. However, the suggestion by Jollimore that religion ought to be held to the same rigorous standards as all other legitimate fields of study makes sense to me. Now that the study of religion is an accepted academic discipline, we have a right to expect it will accept academic disciplines, such as be willing to answer reasonable objections.

Yet Jollimore's insistence that the appeal to apophanticism is nothing more than a last attempt to weasel religion’s way out of the corner it has painted itself into is at least as wrong as is Armstrong in her account of the critics of science in philosophy of science. (What she attributes to Einstein, Heidelberg, and Popper, if this writer is to be believed, is less than the full truth but it is not a deliberate distortion of their positions.)

And why can’t we have one conception that is exempt from the slings and arrows of outrageous analysis? That’s what Derrida calls for when in ACTS OF RELIGION he exempts the God conception from his vast repertoire of literary criticism. His knife of literary analysis applies to all forms of literature that I am familiar with. Yet still he exempts, not religion to be sure, God as symbol from such analysis. That seems to come from him in a spirit of reverence. So, tell me, again, what’s wrong with reverence?

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None of this is relevant - why bother? Just live, love, explore, learn, enjoy. It'l be over too, too soon anyway when we'll all find out the truth - and be unaware of it.

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Zeitgeist Part 1 of 14 - new version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JurrJxfi5OI

Zeitgeist Part 2 of 14 - new version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oub69ZHtA5Y

Zeitgeist, The Movie (free dvd download)

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There is one thing lacking in both article and comments: the holy. The concept of God as holy,
The Holy. That The Holy may be unknowable or largely unknowable is accepted as inevitable by devotees of The Holy given the finite nature of Man and the infinite nature of The Holy. That is not a problem for those who claim to have glimpsed The Holy, even to have some relationship with it.

According to the Catholic and Orthodox churches we come closest to such knowledge of the Holy as is possible for humans in the person of Jesus of Nazareth - however badly, and at times shamefully, even the highest representatives of these churches may have behaved.

Reflecting, or representing the Holy, in this world, this Jesus requires humility, contrition and forgiveness in those who would know the Holy - and more than that, that these people must (or rather will feel an imperative need to) devote themselves to doing good in alleviating the sufferings of their fellows.

I hope I have put as succinctly as possible this form of religious thinking and practice. Whatever one may think of it, it is surely one that should not be left out of today's "God/no God" debates.

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Read it. Too deep for me. Writers hint: Leave out the word "that" whenever possible and your text will read better.

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"The deep point is, once again, that both practice and transformation involve and require belief."

The author is wrong about that point. Zen Buddhist practice involving focusing on the breath, counting the breaths, focusing on the passing of ideas through the mind does not involve belief. Of course, you might start out believing that such a practice will "get you somewhere," but the real point is to explore consciousness. There is the belief that such practice can be transformative, but that belief actually inhibits transformation. Perhaps the reason Buddhist practice is attractive to modern people who are suspicious of belief-dominated religious systems is its lack of reliance upon faith. You don't practice to attain anything, not even good health, but to understand how things work. A fairly healthy basis for a religion.

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I don't have any fixed idea about god. But I have a couple about belief. I walked past the TV the other day and there was a show on PBS showing some archeological finds. I set down and watched. About every 5 minutes the narrator would say "Our Ancestors".

I'm very interested in whatever is found out about anything. I really don't like it when people tell me what to conclude from the findings. I don't know if some "Lucy" was my ancestor or not. Neither does anyone else. So why say it?

Everything I've read, seen and heard leads me to believe, at the moment, that we were built by people from other planets (or dimensions). I just look at all the available physical evidence and make that temporary conclusion. I don't necessarily want this to be the origin of mankind.

On the other hand, It won't bother me whatever the truth winds up to be. I see the biggest problem with religion and science to be one in the same. People are looking for evidence to support their preconceived notions. People look at the things they find as proof for their belief. That gets in the way of good studies, whether one is studying the gross physical or the subtler energies.

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Discussing the unknowable could conceiveably have some purpose; discussing the undefinable does not. It is widely known that any specific religious belief can be disproved, but the assertions that something undefined exists somwhere out there, of course, can not. The soft position atheist merely ignores questions which cannot be stated in words, saying "what's a god?" instead of "there is no god."

Saying that religion is a practice instead of a belief is a way of capitalizing on the real selling point of religion: it keeps some weak people on the straight and narrow. Yes that's a good thing, but that's not all religion does.

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I think the mythologist, Joseph Campbell, said it best. "God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that."

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Armstrong made a great piece of work. What is valuable is the history of thought and the arguments. At the same time there is the kind of acknowledgment reflected in the ancient saying,
"The true Tao is not the Tao I am talking about."
That is a spiritual and emotional acknowledgment
that we do not know everything, that it is not possible to know everything and we must accept what is. In a similar sense, the ancient Hebraic refusal to say the name is embedded in the idea one can't have power over something without naming it. On the other hand, naming an object means one has power over it. Therefore the attempt to name the deity is false because ab initio we cannot have power over it.
If the book teaches us that logical truth, then the project has been worth while.
One might pray to God, talk to God as some therapists sometimes recommend, but we shouldn't talk 'about' God in the same sense we shouldn't talk 'about' our neighbor because the 'about' posits an object.(Wittgenstein's term)

That which is sacred and holy cannot be an
'object'. (First sentences in Decalog)

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Simply send me a half-million dollars & I'll ship him back to you. (FREE SHIPPING IF YOU ACT NOW!)

Obviously, whoever buys it from me will make a fortune showing it around.

Just as obviously - you absolutely must believe me because you can't prove I *don't* have a unicorn...

... I await your payment. (Cash only, small bills, please)

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Armstrong is very smart and an engaging writer - A History of God is a great read. However if she wishes to emphasize practice over belief, this is contradicts centuries of Christian doctrine, that the mind of the believer must be correct (the very meaning of orthodoxy). Orthopraxy, on the other hand, is "right" action regardless of what one believes in the mind. I think that even liberal Christians would still demand that, e.g., one accept that Jesus died for the sins of humankind, or at the very least that he was divine; per Paul it is not enough just to be a good person and go to church, right? For an atheist, though, it all comes down again to evidence - where is the (adulterated Flavus Josephus notwithstanding) third party evidence that Jesus even existed? How can the numerous objections to god's existence (see, e.g., Atheism: The Case Against God, which predates all the vitriolic so-called New Atheist books) be answered?

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Infidels, heathens, and goyim are hated by religious extremists. There is no way to alter their views. The problem arises when one group turns to violence against those that refuse to follow a religious belief. Ministers,Priests,Imams, and Rabbis have to be careful not to turn their followers against outsiders. It should be made a crime if they do.

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The issue isn't about god(s) anymore, it's about WHAT'S NEXT. There obviously is no god that matches the christian or muslim view of such an entity. Christians would LIKE for this debate to continue on as if there's some kind of controversy here worthy of discussion. There isn't. They made their claims, they provided no evidence, no other evidence in support of their claims have been forthcoming, and their system has not made them better people, case closed.

dboy

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Of course I am being sarcastic. The god of Abraham created everything from nothing, according to the bible. From the sublime good to the lowest evil and everything in between. He made it all. Then he sits there and watches as we struggle.

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The god of the Yahwist cult (Jews, Christians and Muslims) is a socially constructed human creation that consists of the bundling of human traits (some virtues, some vices), alienating them from their human core and projecting them into outer space (or at least somewhere where they can't often be seen) but where they can still sit in judgement over us. (The same goes for all other religions with which I am even vaguely familiar.)

This, of course, has nothing to do with the answers to questions such as the origin of the universe, the meaning (if any) of life, the problem of good and evil and that old pot-boiler - is there a life after birth? ... Whoops, sorry, I meant after death ... or did I?

Best advice?

Follow the lead of the late Kurt Vonnegut. He said somewhere (probably in the later pages of Fates Worse than Death) words to the effect that God is unknowable and therefore unservable. The troubles of our fellow humans are, however, obvious. We should therefore do what we can to help out people who are in misery.

God, of course, should be left alone to take care of herself.

For anyone interested in pursuing the ultimate answers to the ultimate questions, I can only quote the great scientist Haldane: "The universe is not only queerer than you imagine, it is queerer than you can imagine."

End of story.

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Athiests don't have God at all. The entire discussion is pointless.
Anna

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She might be getting spiritual and religious mixed up. I am very spiritual, but not religious at all. This is when I don't believe in the bible and such, but I do believe in morals and that we have something like a spirit.

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There is no point in debating the question of religion. Most religious people have been programmed in their religious beliefs from an early age. To reject that programming would require a dramatic reorganization of their basic belief system. Nor are you likely to convince an adult who was spared or rejected early religious programming to believe in supernatural beings. As much as they would like to believe in a benevolent protector at times, they cannot suspend disbelief. closets

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To say "It isn’t believing certain things but rather living a certain sort of life that makes a person religious" is to take a particular position in one dispute over which Christians have argued -- and slain each other -- for two millenia. Many have taken the exact opposite view, codifying prayers that start credo, "I believe", and list statements that you must accept (or, at times, be burned). Changing the one iota that in Greek separated Jesus being of the same substance as the Father, rather than similar substance, could get you killed. The language root of miscreant is not about misbehaving but misbelieving.
Insistence on specific Truths is not a modern deviation, though it would be pleasant to imagine that.

At any given time there have indeed been Christians who celebrated reverence or benevolence over belief, but to regard them as the only true representatives of Christianity is to put oneself in the firing line of a very violent family quarrel.

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What's all this "god" talk anyway? If you want to follow a longstanding tradition of ritual practice and are caught up in an apophatic fit enough to deconstruct your "god," why not abandon the conceit altogether and practice meditation in the belief-free context of Stephen Batchelor's Buddhism. I do think ritual is important for a variety of reasons--to keep us from becoming too neurotic, to keep the brain focused, to sort out troubling aspects of our mental life... etc. Why would someone want to muddy these waters with the "god" obfuscation? Let me attempt an answer here: they want to keep the "god" thing because it affords them a tool... a club, if you like... for wielding power against the world and other humans. Many of us are just too unwilling to drop that hugely rewarding ego-boost we get when we can summon that awesome power of the deity and bring it down with its awe-inspiring force, squarely upon the heads of all the humans we must compete with. After all, it's never enough to simply succeed, other's must fail.

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Armstrongs piece sounds interesting enough.. . .so long as she doesn’t try to impose it upon anyone by intimidation. Or, like the worshipers of the “free market” and “survival of the fittest“, try to legislate it. Christianity is too fragmented these days to be a danger to freedom of thought. However the notion that “science” has proven that reality consists of nothing more than a physical mechanism, changing and developing by a series of implausible accidents, organized by something called “natural selection“, is a concept evangelically promoted in some corners of academia during the last century. Materialism has always been the most common view of reality espoused by Atheists, and while I find it as simplistic as the most naïve religious beliefs, I would defend anyone’s right to espouse it. However, I also defend anyone’s right to propose that intelligence, free will, the existence of right and wrong and purposeful creativity are all aspects of reality. Furthermore, since science is an investigation of reality, they have a right to call it science. Dawkins and other academic atheists have tried to stifle that right.
Bertvan
http://30145.myauthorsite.com/

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The fact is, at least to my sense of logic, that the so-called "new atheists" and the so-called "true believers" are actually just two different approaches to the same worldview: stone cold materialism and nothing more. One side takes theirs with heaven and hell; the other side, without.

When "atheists" (I think "secular materialists" is more accurate) like Richard Dawkins and Greta Christina talk about their sense of awe and wonder when they attempt to comprehend the universe, guess what? They are attempting to express their admiration for existence itself. Take away the universe, and does existence still exist? If there can be existence without manifestation, then God does exist, whether we refer to it as "God", "Nature", "Jehovah", "Allah", "Brahman", "Atman", "pure spirit", etc. Or perhaps more accurately, existence without manifestation is what we are referring to when we say "God".

However you can conceive it, it's still less than what it really is. Yet the only thing anyone can really be certain of is their own existence. You can't be 100% certain that life isn't a dream or an elaborate computer simulation. In fact, you can't show me any proof at all even for your existence. I know for a fact that my imagination is powerful, and that my senses can be easily fooled. I can't say I have access to every part of my mind, or know how accurately I interpret the stimuli my senses receive. I can't prove that I exist to you, beyond all doubt. All I can really know is my own existence.

But what does that depend on? The existence of my body? When I faint, I lose all consciousness of the outer world; anything could be happening to my body during those seconds. But my sense of existence remains with me, away from the body. So the body is not the ultimate me. It's more like a suit I wear to interact with the world.

What about my identity? Is that what my existence rests on? Amnesiacs continue to experience their existence the same way, whether they know their names and can access their memories or not. I exist whether or not I realize I am so-and-so doing such-and-such.

Same thing for the mind itself. For those stricken with mental illnesses, dementia, Alzheimer's disease and other situations where the mind is unable to process information and retain it, the experience of existence is unaltered. We feel we exist under any condition: waking, dreaming, sleeping; even in a coma, perhaps even after death- does anyone ever fail to experience existence?

The deeper one explores the question of "What is the nature of my own existence, the only thing of which I can be absolutely certain?", the more clear it becomes that existence itself, and not matter, is the foundation for the universe.

Existence without diversity = God.

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Arguments for the existence of a god of the omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent variety have been junked as early as 306 BCE (before common era), when the Greek philosopher EPICURUS demolished it once and for all:

“Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?”

Theological sophistry has had nothing on Epicurus: End of that story.
On the evidence for god side: nothing. Especially nothing that would make an sincere and open minded person say: Gee, your god proof is logical, substantiated, and irrefutable - what took you so long?!

Remains the postulate of a something mushily called god as the initiator of the universe or life who hasn't been seen or heard from since, being indistinguishable from evolution or nature at work.

Of course anyone is welcome to believe or ignore such a possibility but the important part is that NOTHING OF ETHICAL RELEVANCE DERIVES from such a first mover god.
We do not owe shit to anything that is billions of years removed. More importantly, we can not divine (sic!) ethical guidance from such an event or 'action'.

If it's ethics and values people desire: we have been creating our own codes all along. It's a work in progress. It involves choices and determinations. And they appear to be situational. Peaceful nations turn imperialistic invaders when there ecology changes, when their resources are dwindling, or when psychopaths gain the upper hand. Whatever the driving forces, the ethics change, like it or not.

The fact is that no rule book was ever dished out. If there was one true one it would be incontrovertible and would long have been implemented.

The fact that a plethora of totally contradicting religious edicts and holy books have been spilled all over the place throughout history proves that religions are all man made and are not godlike.

Get over it.

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Talking Heads named one of their albums "More Songs About Buildings and Food."

AlterNet lately is more songs about God (bad) and food (also bad)... with an occasional riff thrown in about wonderful marijuana is.

Hey, today we got all three at once!

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because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. It is impossible to know both the position and velocity of a particle with 100% sureness at the same time. So the idea of an "all-knowing" God is impossible. Any god could not know everything.

Now that's a scientific reason. How's this though: God doesn't exist because... well duh. The idea of religion is one of the stupidest ideas out there. Seriously! Open your eyes!

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Armstrong's book sounds like just another futile attempt to justify God-belief. It can't be done, for many reasons. What she doesn't get is that one should start from a position of nonbelief, because God is such an implausible idea, and because there are thousands of views of God. Given that theological vacuum, one then tries to create a God and add properties to it one after the other. Each property must be shown to be plausible separately. That has, so far as I know, never been done.

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I have heard numerous religious people admit that their religious orientation was necessary for their mental health. Without it, they would become depressed and feel that life had no meaning.

For me, then, to try to take away one's religious beliefs carries some substantial modicum of sadism. Is it not meanspirited to wrest a person's crutch away from them? If we are to treat people with dignity, we must allow that they have a right to believe that which they believe. Crawford reframes religion as belief systems that will not inevitably result in irrational violence and wars, sort of an inoculation against fundamentalism and fanaticism. This is a great service to our culture.

Of course, religion is far more than a defense to depression. Its institutions serve as the central cultural focus for many millions of people in their communities and neighborhoods. Religious congregations form the social structures and opportunities of many parts of the country. Yet, when those congregations are ethnocentric or ideological and deny access to others based upon litmus tests of belief and doctrine, they serve to divide communities, also.

Social structure and culture are not simply crutches, but are a basic human need. So, what are we to replace them with? Science? Give me a break! I can see the need to prevent the crutch of religion from being used as a club, and this is a function of the separation of church and state. This is what Crawford endorses.

Yet, some atheists assert that "science" and rationality should replace religion. Perhaps that is what happens in social and economic elites, but people who are poor, or otherwise in crisis, seem to require a lot more in order to hold on to their sense that tomorrow will be better than today.

Today, we live in a world where people have immense hope and faith in science. Their belief system is capitalism. As a result, we are destroying our planet. Perhaps we need to hang on to religion for a while . . . until we get a better hold of this whole tendency to worship science and technology. In removing a cultural intermediary that can be used to temper the attitudes of humans towards each other, we had best be certain that there are deeply engrained ethical systems in place for maintaining appropriate conduct and social cohesion.

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I think the betting line has God as a 48 point favorite in this game, since it will be a home game and likely to produce a rabid home crowd. The over/under bet is more volatile and I would set the opening line at 62. I think the visitors will muster 14 against God's 48 and there you have it.

A rematch is out of the question. Where the hell would the Atheists find a home field? Now a wild card would have to be the officials and video replay. Can't think of anyone that would be impartial in this game and how the hell do you video vapor?

Looks like a bummer to me....better left to intellectual venues such as sports bars. Can get some good tshirt sales going there.

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The problem with all this god talk is that nobody ever supplies a tissue sample of one.

There are hundreds of gods currently being worshipped. All of them have equal proof: NONE.

All the theology in the world can't provide a single microscopic specimen for analysis. How very stupid, theism.

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...who got stoned and saw God.

The question always is, what God is like.

The only way I can answer the question is to say that God is not like anything that can be named, numbered, categorized, cataloged, or described. The only thing like God is God. A map or a model of God would be God. The closest I can come to stating what God is is to say that God is the awareness that informs all of creation.

Somehow, this First Cause causes the chaos to coalesce into knowable forms and patterns to be interpreted by sentient beings. Without this information, nothing would be knowable.

Does this information exist a priory to the consciousness experiencing it?

Best I can come up with is that the entire Universe exists inside of my own consciousness. I have no direct experience of the Universe except through my own senses - which includes instruments, sensors, and other devices. They all give feedback to us by using one of the six senses.

This question then is true in some respects, false in some respects also, both true and false. And, in the absence of my consciousness to ponder the question, it is meaningless...

Of course, I am not conscious of the entire Universe. I have the "drop's" perspective of the "ocean".

I believe we all share in an individual, yet collective awareness - which is the closest I can come to describing God.

Can I prove this using the scientific method? No. Is it reproducible in a laboratory? No. Is it bulls#!t? No.

Spirituality is not the same thing as religion. Mysticism is not the same thing as religion either. Neither depend on a "Personal Jesus". I have issues with most religions. Karl Marx wasn't entirely wrong (I was never a fan of the opiates either)...

pax...
Pope Urban XXIII

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The few out-of-the-closet atheists of my acquaintance were, like myself, raised under the auspices of an organized religion, and arrived at an atheistic worldview only with great reluctance. After all, is there really a single normal person who does not want to believe in a final, beneficent court of appeals and an afterlife of eternal bliss? Having read a couple of Ms. Armstrong's earlier books, I've gotten the impression that she is experiencing the same tug-of-war between her heart and her intellect.

And it looks as though the heart--religion-- is winning. Consider, for instance, Armstrong's hypothesis of ". . . the effect of such nihilism (i.e., atheism) on people who do not have privileged lives and absorbing work?" This is nothing more than a rewording of Marx's "religion as the opiate of the masses" conviction. (Which, unfortunately, is still quite accurate.)

Granted, the "apophaticism" argument is no doubt highly seductive for legions of the tenaciously credulous in search of a rationale to justify their ongoing seduction. But the argument, despite its Thomistic overtones, is more sophistry than defensible philosophy.

What Armstrong does with her considerable intellect, and what Pat Robertson and his confreres do with their appalling ignorance are not the polar opposites they appear to be at first glance. Ultimately, because they all postulate the same shopworn concept, Armstrong is really just a sort of parson-in-the-pulpit for the thinking person.

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God or no god-it doesn't matter to us! We prefer to live our lives without dogma.

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See the article on RawStory.com:

"I don't have enough faith to be an atheist," Warren told Fox News anchors Steve Doocy and Martha MacCallum Monday.

This is because he is TOO LAZY to work things out for himself. He does not have the mental capacity to understand the natural laws of the universe so he needs his doctrine spoon-fed to him.

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Einstein, Planck and many other great minds spent whole working lives dealing with tiny fractions of the testable.
Well its too short to spend it postulating and arguing the impossible and the ineffable (Does that refer to the F word in some Freudian sense?) just so any and every jumped-up little shmoe can lay claim to centrality, even to 'life eternal'.

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The point that the "new" atheists also make, and that the author of the book being reviewed seems to have missed, is why the need for a concept of God in the first place? Mankind created the notion of Gods to explain things that they couldn't explain. Since then, science has answered hundreds and hundreds of thousands of questions about why and how things are. Not once has the answer turned out to be "God" or "magic".

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Those 7 minutes I just spent reading that stupid freakin article -I want them BACK!!!!

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Thinkers and Believers.
There are NO shades of grey here; you're either one or the other, period.
If you're truly a thinker, you're almost certainly an atheist.
There never has been and never will be any any common ground between the two, except the mandated tolerance in our Constitution.

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Regardless of what THE universal truth actually is, religion in its many forms, is surely nothing more than our various attempts to grasp it.

That pursuit, in and of itself, is admirable and understandable, and with 6.7 million of us, it is hardly surprising that there is so much diversity in the explanations we develop.

The problem comes from those who see and use our collective uncertainty and fear as the basis for manipulating and exploiting us.

It is the lust and competition for power that creates division and maintains the conditions for endless war.

How/why do they continue to get away with it?

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The author says, "But few defenders of religion attempt actually to spell out the theological details; and the results of those attempts that have been made are, in my experience, deeply unsatisfying." May I suggest a short reading list starting with the four volume Summa Contra Gentiles by Thomas Aquinas, available at a Barnes and Noble near you.

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The more secure, healthy, educated and prosperous a country is, the more likely it is to be secular, agnostic and atheist. Arguments for atheism (especially those "discrediting" the supreme sky-wizard) on secular atheist progressive websites are amusing and all, but they do little to change anyone's mind, and even less to change their hearts.
Like much religion and warmongers, atheism is a racket, hustling an idea nothing, peddling nowhere. Taking away some people's faith would lead them directly to suicide, drug abuse, and murder; atheism isn't nihilism, but nihilism is exactly what it would feel like to the devout. There is no intellectual argument that will sway deeply felt emotions.
Putting atheism before prosperity puts the relaxation before the massage; put the drunk before the booze, and they will drink, but put the booze before they've drank, with an argument they can thunk, they might not drank so drinkily.

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What I understand from listening to people of "faith" is that they are positing two alternative states of mind: the scientific and the emotive. The former they see as an operative state and the latter as a state of being. I think they get in trouble when they attempt to combine the two into one. You can have an emotive experience and there is nothing more that science can say about it except "ok, if you say so". And science can predict an outcome based upon reasoned analysis, while the emotive state can say nothing of it beyond transitioning to another emotive state. Sure, science might be able to predict emotive states but that knowledge does not alter the fact that the emotive state is what it is - it has its own internal reality that is the experience itself, while science has its own external reality that is what we usually refer to as "reality".

The difference here is that external reality reflects our faculty to reason and function, while internal reality is a state of being. Positing a god into external reality is pointless because the latter is an abstraction to the internal state of being - we do not, for example, emotively experience a pile of dirt, a plant or another being (although we can empathize with it, which is to adjust our internal emotive state).

Neither, however, does it lessen the emotive state by analyzing it or claiming to understand it, because it remains what it is, and any such understanding will be contextual at best because the abstraction of understanding can never actually become the emotive state, can never become concrete, and all proofs are based upon axioms which are abstractions.

The difference between Western and Eastern religions is that Western religion confuses external reality with emotive reality in order to exert control over its "flock", i.e. other beings inhabiting external reality. Eastern religion, on the other hand, understands this duality and makes no effort whatsoever to posit an external god. What it does instead is attempt to stimulate the emotive being to behave in ways that provide it stability and contentment, encourage it to embrace reason when dealing with reality and to enter into empathic states to increase harmony among all emotive beings.

Both religious models are "valid" insofar as they both exist, but I find the Eastern religions to be closer to "truth" (an abstraction) and at the very least more conducive to harmony in both external and emotive states of existence. To see this one need only look at the incessant hatred and violence that surrounds Western religion, its embrace of slavery, genocide and all manner of things in the pursuit of a command-and-control methodology that exists for its own sake. That is, it is an attempt to solidify the external reality into an emotive reality by enslaving the emotive reality to its external abstracted reality. This is a sort of neurosis that can, and does, create great harm to the emotive being and creates a "trapped external reality state" that is no longer responsive or aware. The latter results in the zomby-like cult thinking that gave us Jonestown and other suicide cults as well as primitive sacrificial rites.

peace,
Paul

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That's my whole reason for pushing my own preferred atheism -- because the religionists won't respect my right not to have to support their delusions. They continue to insist on moving that delusion into the public arena, both in terms of continuing discussion, and of making policy.

Discussion is one thing, but when I hear, as I did today, over the Christian radio station playing in Saint Vincent de Paul's, that removing government funds from the funding of church programs constitutes a violation of Christians' right to worship, I get up in arms.

Policy is no sphere for things that don't make sense, that CANNOT make sense, to hold sway over things that do.

As long as Christians attack my right to not have them messing with my government, to not have them garnish my taxes for their own purposes, to not have to pay for their delusions, then I'll continue to attack the views that guide those actions.

If they would see fit to leave well enough alone, to see that their views belong where they are -- inside of their own heads -- then I'll leave them well enough alone and be glad of it.

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I find the rhetoric espoused by those authors who are under a lot of attacks by religious bounty hunters doesn't necessarily help the position of mental freedom by constantly arguing argumentum vis a vie arguing on the same convoluted mine-field as religious mercenaries caught up in a perpetual never-ending religious guerrilla war of attrition.

With this premise in play, apparently whoever gets in the last word assumes they're the winner of the (debate for us) war for them.

Since no matter how much logic is used to make a point, when the other side is playing with monopoly money "facts" and they own the bank, false narrative carpet-bombing is their preferred tactic, where does that leave the reality based community?

If we respond it gives their nonsense credence, if we ignore them, they will perpetually claim that we "must admit" that they're right and we're wrong, it's a catch-22 in this war on logic by religious "warriors" as some have presciently stated in other comments.

If someone insists on stubborn stupidity and they defend it like it was the only thing keeping them alive, how do you convince them that they're drowning if they've decided that evolving gills isn't so hard if they believe they can breathe under-water, how should we attempt to signal to them a modicum of truth?

At some point futility has to be taken seriously and we should move on to promoting critical thinking, vice Pee-Wee Herman arguing, "I know you are, but what am I"?

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God and religion are not the same thing. Belief in god does not imply that one is religious. Being religious doesn't even imply a belief in god, but only a willingness at minimum to adhere to a formalized custom.

No organized religion could possibly have any corner on god knowledge, if indeed it were even possible for a religion to have god knowledge at all (as distinct from the tenets or dogma of the religion).

My personal belief is that everyone is god, that as god no one has any need for religion, and that every organized religion is a pyramid scheme.

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This thoughtfully written article covers many of the most blatant flaws in Ms. Armstrongs book. If the article were shorter, it could be criticized for allowing some statements to stand unexamined. To rebut every misleading statement would require a book length rebuttal. I believe this was an excellent essay and convincingly rebutted much of the misguided logic in Ms. Armstrongs book. Thanks for taking the time.

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In the sense that they both exert an enormous amount of time and energy to belittle, dehumanize, and falsify the beliefs and lifestyles of those with whom they disagree.

Both the atheist and the homophobe posess those in their ranks who profess to know the inner thoughts of their respective targets.

Homophobes cannot fathom a person having thoughts of physical attraction to the same sex and so they opine that it is a mental disorder and "true Homosexuality" simply can't exist.

Likewise, Some atheist are sure that no one "really' hears the voice of God and so they also opine it is false. And Yes I have read many atheist opinions that used the term "Mental Illness" to describe religious belief.

I believe it comes down to anger, fear and resentment. Many people simply fear what they don't understand. A resentment is the result of a fear you are forced to face again and again. Anger is the end result of a long held resentment.

So, as you bash your theistic friends and aquaintances, ask yourself.

Am I only afraid of them?

Or am I Theist Curious?

For the record. I am an agnostic and admitting that I just don't know works well for me.

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Once again this Freethinker wants you to know I could give a care less if people believe in God, Easter bunny, ghost, Santa Claus, etc. The problem is when you force your beliefs on me. When you try to make laws based on your religious beliefs, when you knock on my door to enlighten me about your beliefs, when you coopt my holidays and claim them for your icons, etc. Otherwise, we can coexist with each other. You can respect my personal space and do what you do with those that share your beliefs.

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...interesting. MOST faith and belief in a "religious" God have been indoctrinated, programmed, and/or brainwashed into believers, usually from a very young age. This indoctrination and programming is pervasive throughout most societies and cultures. I constantly see this indoctrination, programming, and propaganda in parenting, government, media, social events, churches, and almost every other aspect of society. To continually ignore the fact that most people have been indoctrinated into the "belief" of a religious God to some extent is quite ignorant and dishonest.

From my experience, observation and understanding, most believers of God were indoctrinated into this belief and did NOT come up with this belief by their own freewill or by their own determination. So...unless someone is actually questioning their indoctrination and programming, it is basically futile to have a critical, logical, intelligent, rational, honest, skeptical, reasonable, and/or scientific discussion with people who blindly believe in their indoctrination and programming.

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i wonder how karen armstrong reconciles her argument that practice, rather than belief, is the key to religion with one of the most important doctrines in christianity, expressed in john 3:16, which says:"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

"...whosoever believeth..." got that. this key passage clearly ranks belief, not practice, as pre-eminent, at least in armstrong's religion, christianity.

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Religion is about what you "believe" as the word is currently understood and has been since monotheism began at least. That's why all the abrahamic religions make you say what you believe. They don't primarily talk about what you do. To be a Muslim you don't have to act as a Muslim, you have to say "There is no god but God and Mohamed is his prophet.". Christians recite the Nicene Creed, also a collection of statements asserted as fact without any reference to action. I don't know much about Judaism but I'll bet it's the same. It's clear that the fundamental requirement of religion is to hold as true certain statements, not to act in a certain way.

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Hey, theists:

Quit complaining about people who have tossed off their mental 'god'-chains and think freely.

Either provide evidence for your outlandish beliefs or shut up about them.

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