Giving in to the psychopaths

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/7787082/Bangladesh-blocks-Facebook-over-Mohammed-images.html

The fear of attacks from radical Muslims has won out over free speech again:

"Chief telecommunication regulator Zia Ahmed said that access to the site has been temporarily blocked because it was publishing caricatures that may hurt the religious sentiments of people in the Muslim-majority nation.

Ahmed said the government had asked local internet service providers to block the objectionable content, and that access to Facebook would be restored if the offending material was removed.

Muslims regard depictions of the prophet, even favourable ones, as blasphemous.
Thousands of Muslims protested in Dhaka on Friday against what they called Facebook's "blasphemous content" because of a page called "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" that encouraged users to post images of the prophet.

The ban disappointed some Facebook users, estimated by the Bangladesh ISP Association to number nearly 1 million in a country of 150 million people.

"The government should have stopped the objectionable page rather than blocking the entire site," Facebook user Farzan Hasan said."

Wrong, they shouldn't block anything, it's what free speech is all about and what these fanatics are unable to understand.

The Holy Water It Burns!

http://www.ksbw.com/news/23669301/detail.html

"Two Florida teachers allegedly poured holy water on another teacher because she is an atheist, WPLG-TV in Miami reported.

The station said that Leslie Rainer and Djuna Robinson have been removed from their classrooms. The veteran and self-proclaimed Christian teachers work at Blanche Ely High School.

In April, they were reassigned after another teacher, Schandra Rodriguez, who is an atheist, said they poured holy water on her during an incident at the school on March 11.

"Miss Robinson obtained a little bottle with some perfume in it in jest, and the students will all confirm she never went close to Miss Rodriguez. Miss Rodriguez was on the other side of the classroom and that was basically it," said Johnny L. McCray Jr., Rainer and Robinson's attorney.

The accused teachers said it was a joke. Rodriguez, however, said they did it because she is an atheist.

Rodriguez is still teaching at the school, and some said it's not fair.
"If we are going to ban talking to students about God, then the atheists should also be banned from telling kids there is no God," said the Rev. Kirby Thurston.
The Broward School Board is investigating the allegations. According to McCray, students are also being questioned about what happened."

Biblical Prophecies Notes:

Biblical Prophecies Notes:

Before the end comes, the Gospel will be preached to the entire world

Bible prophecy: Matthew 24:14
Prophecy written: During the first century
Prophecy fulfilled: Fulfilled in history, currently being fulfilled

In Matthew 24:14, the Bible says that the Gospel (the news about Jesus and his offer of salvation and eternal life) will be preached throughout the world. The Bible also says that sometime after this happens, the end will come. The Bible has been preached throughout the world for a long time. But now, with the increasing worldwide availability of television and the Internet, there is greater potential for the Gospel to be preached to everyone, everywhere. - Copyright © George Konig, Ray Konig and 100Prophecies.org


Obviously a clear motive for some to preach the Gospels.  Seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy that could easily occur without divine intervention.

There will be false messiahs before Jesus returns

Bible prophecy: Matthew 24:23-25
Prophecy written: During the first century
Prophecy fulfilled: Many times throughout history

Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24 that there would be false messiahsbefore his return and history has provided us with many examples.

Perhaps the most destructive of the false messiahs was Simon bar Kochba, who unleashed such great harm on his people that the injuries are still visible today.

Kochba lived during the second century of this era. With the help of the highly revered Rabbi Akiva, who declared that Kochba was the promised messiah, Kochba organized a rebellion against the Romans who occupied and controlled the land of Israel.

The Romans, at great cost to themselves, eventually defeated Kochba's rebellion, and destroyed villages, towns and settlements throughout the land of Israel, and forced a new exile of Jews from the land of Israel, the effects of which are felt today. Even now, the majority of Jewish people live outside of the land of Israel. - Copyright © George Konig, Ray Konig and 100Prophecies.org

Again this feels as if it is self-fulfilling.  There are advantages (in the minds of some) to making claims about being the messiah.  It`s a power thing.  Humankind's thirst for power is at work here.  How many false messiahs must there be before the return happens?

Jerusalem will be trampled upon

Bible prophecy: Luke 21:23-24
Prophecy written: During the first century
Prophecy fulfilled: Currently being fulfilled

Jesus prophesied that the Gentiles, which is a word that refers to non-Jews, would trample upon Jerusalem until the end times.

It is interesting to note that when Jesus gave this prophecy during the first century of this era, the Jews had considerable control over the city of Jerusalem, even though they were forcibly incorporated into the Roman Empire. The Jews had a Temple in Jerusalem and were able to carry out various Temple functions associated with Judaism.

But, about 40 years after Jesus prophesied about Gentiles trampling upon Jerusalem, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple and forced Jews into exile. Even today, nearly 2,000 years later, the Jews still do not have enough control over Jerusalem to rebuild their Temple on the Temple Mount. - Copyright © George Konig, Ray Konig and 100Prophecies.org

There's no doubt that Jerusalem remains a source of conflict even today.  However, many experts on the Israeli-Palestine conflict will argue that while religious motives may play a factor, it certainly goes beyond that.  Right-wing evangelicals in the West do seem to have a biblically motivated reason for giving strong support to Israel.  Sadly, this comes at the cost of rights and freedoms of the Palestinians.

All who believe in Jesus will be saved

Bible prophecy: John 3:16
Prophecy written: During the first century
Prophecy fulfilled: Currently being fulfilled

In books, movies and Internet articles, so much attention is given to the prophecies that foretell the future of the world that we sometimes overlook the prophecies that foretell our own futures, on an individual basis. Consider, for example, John 3:16, in which Jesus prophesies that anyone who believes in him will be given the gift of eternal life with God. - Copyright © George Konig, Ray Konig and 100Prophecies.org

Whether or not this is coming true cannot be proven.  Given that there is no reliable evidence of an afterlife and that those who follow Jesus are saved it's hard to call this a prophecy.  A promise is more appropriate.  One that cannot possibly be determined to be true until after death.  At which point it becomes irrelevant because of the problem that we are unable to communicate with the dead to find the answer.  

 

Isaiah foreshadowed the virgin birth of Jesus

Bible prophecy: Isaiah 7:14
Prophecy written: Between 701-681 BC
Prophecy fulfilled: About 5 BC

In Isaiah 7:14, the prophet Isaiah addresses the "house of David," meaning the family and descendants of King David, and speaks of a virgin being pregnant with a child, and giving birth to the child. Isaiah says this in the context of it being a sign from God. He also says that the child would be referred to as "Immanuel," which means, "God with us."

The New Testament books of Matthew and Luke record details involving the birth of Jesus, who was born about 700 years after the time of Isaiah, saying that he was born of the virgin Mary and is the Son of God. Because he is the Son of God, Jesus literally can be referred to as "God with us."

Non-Christian scholars have challenged this interpretation. They say that the Hebrew word "almah," which is the word that Christian Bibles often translate as "virgin," actually means "young maiden" or "young woman." It should be noted that the Old Testament uses the word to refer to young, unmarried women, and that unmarried women were culturally and religiously expected to be virgins. One example can be found in Genesis 24:43, where it speaks of a person being sought as a bride for Isaac. - 

 

I have to side with the criticism given above.  A mistranslation seems likely.  As for nothing that unmarried women were expected to virgins, well it's just that an expectation.  It doesn't mean that all women will follow that path unless they are being forced to against there will.  Furthermore, in order to except this view one would have to accept the idea the the Son of God was indeed born of a virgin.  I dare say this is still disputed considering that the virgin birth is not mentioned in the four gospels.  Not exactly a point that most would simply gloss over. The virgin birth also has the problem that the Bible states that Jesus was a  a "direct" descendant of King David through the male line.  How can this be if he is God's son?  In order for me to accept this argument I would have to accept the miracle of the virgin birth, which means I would have to accept the possibility of miracles and by extension the existence of God.  Therefore, this argument only works if you accept those premises.  Otherwise, it's a poor prophecy to use as an example of proving Biblical prophecies.

 

The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem

Bible prophecy: Micah 5:1-2
Prophecy written: Sometime between 750-686 BC
Prophecy fulfilled: About 5 BC

In Micah 5:2, there is a prophecy that reveals that Bethlehem would be the birthplace of the Messiah.

As pointed out in the book, 100 Prophecies, by George Konig and Ray Konig: "The prophecy is effective in a simple way: It eliminates all other cities and towns throughout the world as a place in which the Messiah could be born. It narrows the possibilities to one tiny village just south of Jerusalem."

And throughout the span of the past 27 centuries, from the days of the prophet Micah up through the present time, Bethlehem is credited as being the birthplace for only one person who is widely known throughout the world. And that person is Jesus Christ.

The New Testament books of Matthew and Luke name the town of Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus. Matthew 2:1-6 describes the birth of Jesus as the fulfillment of Micah's prophecy.

In recent years, however, some non-believers have attempted to discredit Matthew's interpretation of Micah 5:2 by claiming that the prophecy refers to a person named Bethlehem, not a town name Bethlehem. This claim has been widely circulated on the Internet by a college professor who describes himself as a former Christian minister.

The first problem with this claim appears in Micah 5:1. In that verse, the prophet establishes that he is speaking of Bethlehem the town, not Bethlehem the person, by setting up a context in which he contrasts the great city of Jerusalem with the humble town of Bethlehem.

A second problem with the claim is that there is also evidence outside of the Bible that shows that Micah 5:2 was regarded as a Messianic prophecy involving the town of Bethlehem. Here is an excerpt from the Jerusalem Talmud, which is a collection of Judaism-related writings completed about 1600 years ago:

"The King Messiah... from where does he come forth? From the royal city of Bethlehem in Judah." - Jerusalem Talmud, Berakoth 5a. - 

 

There is an idea that suggests Jesus was born in Nazareth.  This can be explained when you consider that The story of the travel to Bethlehem by Mary and Joseph to take part in a survey is almost certainly fictitious. Mary and Joseph would not have to take part in a survey of the Roman Empire, as they lived in the area of Judea that was still a client kingdom, not a province, of the Roman Empire. The reason for this particular fabrication is that Hebrew prophesy foretold that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.  Who is to say the authors of the Gospels didn't simply read the prophecies in the Old Testament and create a story to match the prophecies?  Again, in order to accept that he was born in Bethlehem requires believing the historical accuracy of the Gospels and disregarding other historical explanations.  One would think that the birth of the Son of God would not have many contradictions in the story.  After all, it would be the greatest event in the history of humankind. 

 

The Messiah would come from the tribe of Judah

Bible prophecy: Genesis 49:10
Prophecy written: As early as 1400 BC
Prophecy fulfilled: About 5 BC

In Genesis 49:10, Jacob is blessing his 12 sons. This blessing was also a prophecy. Jacob told his son Judah that his descendants would be rulers and that one of his descendants will be an ultimate ruler. According to the NIV translation: "The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his." Christians acknowledge that this is a reference to Jesus Christ, whose kingdom will have no end. Jesus was born about 2000 years after Jacob died. Jesus' ancestry is traced back to Jacob's son, Judah, in Luke 3:23-34 and in Matthew 1:1-16. Today, there are some estimates that claim that there are as many as 2 billion Christians worldwide who follow the teachings of Jesus. 

 

 

Here again is the problem of Jesus' ancesteral line, which ignores the problem of God being his father.  Unless this is Mary's line?  I do not know enough to be sure about that.

 

The Messiah would be a descendant of King David

Bible prophecy: Jeremiah 23:5
Prophecy written: Sometime between 626-586 BC
Prophecy fulfilled: By the birth of Jesus about 2000 years ago

In Jeremiah 23:5, as well as in other Bible prophecies, we are told that the Messiah would be a descendant of King David.

The New Testament books of Matthew and Luke trace back Jesus' genealogy to King David. (Some scholars believe that the genealogy in Matthew is Jesus' legal line, through his adoptive father, Joseph, and that the genealogy in Luke is Jesus' bloodline through Mary).

 

 See my objection to the previous prophecy.  Stating that it was a legal line creates a back door to the bloodline objection if God is the father.  Luke being the only Gospel that considers it to be through the bloodline of Mary is concerning.  Why wouldn't the other Gospels mention this.  I hate to sound like a broken record but written facts about the Son of God should be better documented.  Or am I asking for too much?

Creationists Can't be Scientists

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/revoking-degrees-from-creation-scientists

An argument for why creation scientists should be stripped of their degree:

"There's been some talk about universities revoking PhDs of scientists who later go on to become creationists or otherwise were always creationists and it was never known to the dissertation advisory committee. As it is right now, it's only talk, but I hope to god (no pun intended) that this becomes a reality.

Yes, I believe that "creation scientists" should be stripped of any and all scientific credentials and degrees. The reason is simple: "creation scientists" hold to outdated mythology and poor methodology. They reject simple things that are the key building blocks to modern science. Evolutionary biology is the single most important, fascinating, and beautiful theory in modern science, and it is the very crux of what nearly all of modern science is dependent on. Why should we approve people as "scientists" when they reject such a key component of modern science?

"Creation scientists" (I put the term in quotation marks because there really is no such thing, it's an oxymoron) falsify evidence and misinterpret results to justify their "young earth" stance. Further, they spit in the face of so many of today's great scientists and the work they do, replacing scientifically valid trials and experiments with unproven, outdated mythology. It's completely and totally unacceptable.

Historically it might have been acceptable, for individuals in the likes of Newton, Copernicus, and those guys because of the simple fact that evolutionary biology was unheard of at the time. "Creation scientists" like to use these names to justify that creationism is scientifically valid. They do so erroneously and forgetting that evolutionary biology is largely a work of the late 19th and 20th centuries.

"Creation scientists" do little for science today, and in fact, in some ways regress it. Hence I believe that these individuals should absolutely be stripped of any and all scientific credentials, including terminal/doctoral degrees. This is also the reason why I will not write letters of academic recommendation to individuals who want to study science at the undergrad or graduate level yet reject evolutionary biology (note I did not say I don't recommend Christians. There are plenty of Christians who accept evolutionary biology"

I Deny That I'm Not Ignorant!

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20004740-503544.html

In a case of "Only in America" a political candidate was attacked for believing in evolution:

"Alabama gubernatorial candidate Bradley Byrne is attacked for suggesting that evolution, as opposed to creationism, "best explains the origin of life."

The spot, from a shadowy group called the "True Republican PAC," also criticizes Byrne for suggesting the Bible is "only partially true."

Byrne, a former Democrat, is one of a number of candidates for the Republican nomination, and his opponents include "ten commandments judge" Roy Moore and Tim James, who last month released an ad in which he said, "We speak English. If you want to live here, learn it."

What's even more astounding/sad/hilarious is Byrne's response:

""As a Christian and as a public servant, I have never wavered in my belief that this world and everything in it is a masterpiece created by the hands of God," he said. "As a member of the Alabama Board of Education, the record clearly shows that I fought to ensure the teaching of creationism in our school text books. Those who attack me have distorted, twisted and misrepresented my comments and are spewing utter lies to the people of this state."

He also said that, contrary to the ad's claims, he believes "every single word" of the Bible is true."

You see? His opponents have it all wrong. He's as deluded as they are and proud of it.

Catherine Deveny: Offensive Atheist?

http://au.christiantoday.com/article/atheists-say-the-ugliest-things/8148.htm

"Atheist Catherine Deveny has just been fired by the Melbourne Age newspaper.

Even this godless newspaper has finally decided that enough is enough. While she was not dropped for her militant and fundamentalist atheism, she was dropped for some despicable and disgusting comments she made about Sunday night’s Logies ceremony."

Her firing isn't what I want to focus on. The author of the article couldn't have pointed out how the comments she made were out of line and left it that but, in typical fundie fashion he goes on to criticize her atheist views.

"Of course she has said plenty over the years which should have resulted in her getting the sack. She recently appeared at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival with a show entitled, “God is Bulls**t: That’s the Good News”."

No Bill, saying "God is Bullshit" is an opinion and you shouldn't be fired for any opinion like that. I could write into your organization and say that your crap is offensive but I'm not going to bother.

“Strap yourself in for a death-defying ride through Catherine’s spiritual journey from wannabe Catholic altar girl to atheist eye candy. Includes diversions to the megachurch experience, the cult of the Quakers, taking on Cardinal George Pell in a faceoff and her diagnosis that God has Narcissistic Personality Disorder – even though he doesn’t exist. A big finish. Trust me.”

Riotously funny I am sure. She has managed to offend a good 80 to 90 per cent of the world’s population with that routine. That should have been enough for the Age to get the hint that she is not worth her paycheque."

There are a lot of religious people out there and so we should avoid offending them at all costs. Right, or we realize that not everyone of those 80-90 percent of people have a stick jammed up their ass and are willing to laugh.

"I have no idea what she is going through now. She appears not to have the slightest bit of remorse for her barbaric attacks. She may in fact simply become more hardened, more bitter, and more twisted. But we can all pray that despite this cold steel exterior somewhere deep down inside there is still a soft spot that God can work with.

I for one am absolutely thrilled that she no longer has the Age as a vehicle to pour forth her wretched rants. She has finally got what was coming to her. But we must remember to pray for her. She desperately needs to come to the foot of the cross, and find the mercy, grace and forgiveness that she so very much needs.

Indeed, we all need the cross, and some of us have already made that decision to renounce self and put God first. Let us all pray that she makes that decision as well, in what may be a time of crisis for her."

I can't speak for Deveny but I know I wouldn't want a hypocrite like Bill 'she's bigoted and hateful and I'm glad she got sacked but I care for her as well', to pray for me.

Attempt to Remove God From Presidential Oath Fails

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/07/1618631/atheist-fails-in-bid-to-remove.html

Setback in the push for separation of Church and State:

"A federal appeals court on Friday rejected an effort to strip the word "God" from presidential oaths.

Citing largely technical reasons, a three-member appellate panel ruled that California attorney Michael Newdow and his allies weren't in a position to legally challenge the oaths. Newdow, an atheist, had hoped to avoid formal invocation of the deity's name in the 2013 and 2017 inaugurations.

"The only apparent avenue of redress for plaintiffs' claimed injuries would be injunctive or declaratory relief against all possible president-elects and the president himself," noted Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. "But such relief is unavailable."

The appellate court further determined that Newdow's related challenge to the oath taken by President-elect Barack Obama on Jan. 20, 2009, was moot, since there was nothing that could be done after the fact. (The president took the oath twice, once on the Capitol steps and again at the White House, because Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Obama flubbed their lines the first time.)

"Whether the 2009 ceremony's incorporation of the religious oath and prayers was constitutional may be an important question to plaintiffs, but it is not a live controversy that can avail itself of the judicial powers of the federal courts," Brown stated.

Newdow, who is also an emergency-room physician in Sacramento, Calif., has been challenging religion in the public realm for many years but with little lasting success. Most famously, in 2004, the Supreme Court rejected his claim against the suburban Sacramento Elk Grove Unified School District's use of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

The court's 2004 decision, much like the new appellate panel decision, centered on technical rather than substantive constitutional grounds. By a 5-3 margin, the high court determined that Newdow lacked the standing to sue because he didn't have sole legal custody over his daughter, on whose behalf the suit was brought.
Newdow subsequently sought to remove "In God We Trust" from U.S. currency. A federal judge rejected the effort, reasoning that the phrase simply amounted to a national slogan.

In March, in yet another case brought by Newdow, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Sacramento-area Rio Linda Union School District's use of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

"The pledge is one of allegiance to our republic, not of allegiance to the God or to any religion," Judge Carlos T. Bea wrote in the March 11 decision. "Furthermore, Congress' ostensible and predominant purpose when it enacted and amended the pledge over time was patriotic, not religious."

As have judges in other cases, Bea also questioned Newdow's standing to bring the lawsuit.

Newdow consistently argues that he is personally harmed by the religious references. His presidential oath lawsuit specifically targeted use of the phrase "so help me God" by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, who delivers the oath to the president-elect.

"For those ... watching the inaugural ceremony with their children, this action - by the nation's highest judicial official - is especially intrusive and harmful," Newdow argued in his original complaint.

Newdow further noted that the phrase "so help me God" is not included in the version of the presidential oath spelled out in the Constitution. He asserts that the phrase has only been used regularly since the 1930s.

Groups such as the Freedom from Religion Foundation and Atheists United joined Newdow in his Washington lawsuit.

One member of the appellate panel Friday, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, said he would have gone all the way and ruled that the God reference in the inauguration doesn't violate the First Amendment."

I'll never understand the need to invoke the name of an imaginary being in order to serve better as President.

Crazy Christian

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/04/30/shuler-rev-day-prayer-america-obama/

Rev. Bill Shuler thinks the atheist are forcing their "religion" on the American people:

"Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) boasts a Who’s Who of atheists and agnostics on their board. This group has the right to reject God but they should not be given the right to dictate to millions of Americans the substance of their faith."

Of course this is not the goal of the FFRF. No one in that organization is saying Americans can't worship. (The full article is on the National Day of Prayer Ruling.) The FFRF is all for private worship, just not government approved worship. It is people like Rev. Bill Shuler who want to impose faith on the rest of the country.

"The FFRF would have us believe that the public expression of belief in God discriminates against those who do not share such beliefs and that the expression of faith should, therefore, be unlawful for Americans."

Expecting all public officials to remain silent on their religion is not a realistic stance to hold. While I can't speak for the FFRF on this issue in particular, I believe that if a politician wants to mention God fine. The problem is when they tell the rest of America that they should follow God.

National Day of Prayer Update

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20004321-503544.html

In a move that insults secularism and violates a court ruling, President Obama made a National Day of Prayer proclamation:

"Today marks the federally-recognized National Day of Prayer, an annual tradition that dates back to 1952.

Will it be the last?

Last month, a U.S. District Judge in Wisconsin ruled that the government-sanctioned event, established by Congress and marked with a proclamation from the president, is unconstitutional.

"It goes beyond mere 'acknowledgment' of religion because its sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function in this context," wrote Judge Barbara Crabb, who said the event violates the First Amendment's establishment clause banning the creation of a "law respecting an establishment of religion" in the Constitution.

Crabb's decision resulted from a lawsuit filed by a group of atheists and agnostics called the Freedom From Religion Foundation, who complained that the government did not have the right to tell them to pray.

But it did not stop the Obama administration from issuing a National Day of Prayer proclamation this year, just as it had last year; in it, President Obama calls on citizens to "pray, or otherwise give thanks."

"Throughout our history, whether in times of great joy and thanksgiving, or in times of great challenge and uncertainty, Americans have turned to prayer," said Mr. Obama. "In prayer, we have expressed gratitude and humility, sought guidance and forgiveness, and received inspiration and assistance, both in good times and in bad."

The ruling declaring the day unconstitutional sparked outrage from lawmakers, who said it went against America's religious tradition and urged the Obama Justice Department to appeal. Said House Judiciary Committee ranking Republican Lamar Smith: "What's next? Declaring the federal holiday for Christmas unconstitutional?"

The Justice Department did decide to appeal, and Crabb said it was fine for the National Day of Prayer to go forward until appeals are exhausted, which is why it is being recognized today despite the ruling.

Opponents of the day say they do not object to private days of prayer - and, indeed, thousands of private events are taking place nationwide today - but they say the government should not be involved; the Obama administration counters that it simply acknowledges the role of religion in American life.

Upon word that the Obama administration was appealing, Freedom From Religion Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor expressed her disappointment, saying of the president, a former Constitutional law professor, "I would have expected something better from a legal scholar."

Unlike former President George W. Bush, Mr. Obama has not held services in conjunction with the National Day of Prayer, though he has participated in a number of prayer breakfasts while in office; the decision to put less of a focus on the day prompted a false Internet-driven rumor that he had "canceled" the event because he prefers to pray with Muslims. (Snopes debunks the rumor here.)

The White House said the president, who has not been a regular churchgoer in office, is praying privately instead of holding an ecumenical service, as Mr. Bush did.

"Prayer is something that the president does every day," press secretary Robert Gibbs said. He added that "the president understands, in his own life and in his family's life, the role that prayer plays."

That's insufficient for the conservative National Day of Prayer Task Force, which works to "publicize and preserve America's Christian heritage" and has expressed frustration there is no service, as the Christian Science Monitor reports. For his part, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh complained that the White House's position marked the president "asserting his authoritarian control."

Also unhappy is 2010 National Day of Prayer Task Force honorary chairman Franklin Graham, who was disinvited from a Pentagon National Day of Prayer service over his comments that Muslims are "enslaved" by Islam, which he had called "a very evil and wicked religion." Graham is reportedly standing outside the Pentagon in protest of the disinvitation today.

Atheist groups, meanwhile, are torn: While they are happy Mr. Obama has elected not to hold services in conjunction with the day, they are frustrated that he is continuing the tradition and that he is appealing Judge Crabb's ruling.

"We are very happy he did away with the George W. Bush-era celebrations and party, but we wish he wouldn't do it at all...When church and state are separate, separate is separate," American Atheists spokesperson David Silverman."

Religion may play a large role in the lives of Americans but that is no reason for it to be sanctioned by the government.

"Noah's Ark"

http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2010/04/fake_noahs_ark_found_on_mt_ara.php

Josh Rosenau writes on the "fake" discovery of Noah's Ark:

"So Fox News breathlessly reported that Chinese researchers had found Noah's ark. "Has Noah's Ark been found on Turkish mountaintop?," they asked, dumbly. "No," answered slacktivist.

Gawker replied at greater length:

A group of evangelicals found some 4,800-year-old wood on top of Mount Ararat. They are "99.9 pecent" sure that it's Noah's ark. This is totally real, which is why it's on the front page of Fox News' "SciTech" section.

Slacktivist didn't actually just say "no," he expanded on the point by noting:
The expedition seems to have found a wooden structure. They hear hoofbeats, so they're "99.9 percent" certain it must be a zebra. Or a unicorn with zebra stripes.
Considering the style of argumentation offered by Noah's Ark Ministries, he continues:

If you had these people read Aesop's story of the Ant and the Grasshopper and then asked them what the story means, they would reply that it means they should start raising money for an entomological expedition to Greece, because holy cow -- talking insects!

Atrios was just bemused, wondering:

Weren't there like 15 In Search Of documentaries and even a movie around that time about how they so totally found Noah's Ark? Also, Sasquatch.
Various sciencebloggers responded to the incident with predictable ire, with PZ Myers jumping on the Chinese creationists' claim that the wood had been carbon dated to 4,800 years old:

Oh, yeah. Now the creationists are willing to say carbon-dating is valid.
You wish. Todd C. Wood, a baraminologist (creationist who knows better than to reject evolution outright) at William Jennings Bryan College in Dayton, TN, rejected the finding, observing:

1. They claim that radiocarbon dates the wood to 4800 years before present, but the Ark was constructed of pre-Flood wood, which would mean that the carbon dating should be much, much older.

2. The modern "Mt. Ararat" (Agri Dagh) is a post-Flood volcano. The Ark could not have landed on Agri Dagh because it did not exist at the end of the Flood, and even if it did land on modern Agri Dagh, it would have been destroyed by the many, many eruptions of Ararat since the Flood. You can observe all the fresh lava flows on Agri Dagh at Google Maps.

3. Given that the Flood survivors left the Ark to find a devastated world, the Ark would have been the best source of timber for the first decade or so. I think it highly likely that the Ark was dismantled to supply the growing population with building material for shelter.

Say what you will about creationists, some of them have genuine critical thinking skills. But as the saying goes, garbage in, garbage out. Wood assumes that magic things happened to radioisotopes during the Flood, so wood from before the Flood should, like dinosaur bones and preCambrian fossils, have an apparent age of millions of years old.

And then the whole thing collapsed. Wood later reported on comments by someone who tagged along on some of the Ark expeditions and absolutely debunked the story. He concluded:

So there you have it. You know, creationists give evolutionists a hard time over hoaxes like Piltdown, but frankly, we've got just as many skeletons in our closet. Paluxy, Durupinar, the Burdick print, and so it goes.

In creationist math, three hoaxes are "just as many" as one, I suppose. And Wood gives some tolerably good advice (if you edit it right):

Here's some friendly advice to my readers: Please stop pouring money into fruitless searches for Noah's Ark. Do you know what real good you could accomplish with your money? Instead of gambling it away on the hope that you'll find Noah's Ark on a mountain where it can't possibly be? If you're really into creationism, invest in creationist education or research. There are plenty of creation scientists out there struggling with little or no research funding, and it physically sickens me to see people getting swindled out of thousands of dollars on ridiculous Ark expeditions. Don't like research? Then just donate to the Creation Museum. Or give your money to a legitimate missions organization, like the Bible League. Support your local soup kitchen or shelter for battered women or addiction rehab facility. There's so much good you could do with that kind of financial blessing.

There is no Ark. There never was, and if there had been, it wouldn't still be sitting on Mt Ararat. Do something useful with that energy. And remember a point slacktivist made about this in 2007:

it's still startling how many people have gotten drowned in the details of this story. They travel to Mt. Ararat in search of the ark, or they obsess over details of hydrology and storage space. Just as lost at sea are these poor folks' mirror opposites -- those who obsess over the details to prove that the story is "literally" false. (I'm forced to place the word literally in quotation marks here because it is the word they insist on using, although what they mean by it is far from clear.)
Both sorts of literalists approach these stories with the same incomprehension as that of people who don't understand jokes. "What kind of bar?" they ask. You try to ignore them, to get on to the punch line, to the point, but they keep interrupting. "A duck? I don't think you'd be allowed in the bar if you were carrying a duck."

Such people are particularly infuriating when you're trying to tell a really good joke. They're even more infuriating when you're trying to tell a really important story.

Enjoy the story. Study the story. If you find meaning in the story, retell the story and help other people understand it. But the truth of the story about Noah's ark has nothing to do with exactly how long a cubit was, what sort of wood is meant by "gopher wood," or what happened to all the poop. Noah's ark is a story about the dangers of selfishness, about the importance of being good to one another, and ultimately of honoring our ancestors. It's also about the patriarchal society of the era in which it was written down, a culture in which the sins of the father pass to the children, and in which Noah's religious devotion could save not only himself, but his family, just as Lot's goodness (including a willingness to offer his virgin daughters to be raped by a mob to save a guest) was sufficient to save his family.
In other words, a good story, but also a problematic one. And sometimes, problematic stories are the best ones, since you need to think about them more, and reward careful consideration. But not an excuse for chasing around Turkey sneaking rotten wood up a mountain to build a fake boat."

Belief in the flood story has to be the most irrational of them all.

David Quammen on Charles Darwin

http://tnjn.com/2010/apr/27/david-quammen-speaks-on-charle/

Tameka Tift reports on a lecture given by David Quammen on Charles Darwin:

“Throughout David Quammen's discussion of Charles Darwin and On the Origin of the Species, he focused on the theme that Darwin was a cautious and honest man.

Quammen notes that On the Origin of Species is not just a scientific book but rather a foundational work of Western culture and thought.

“"Evolution, not extinction, not conservation but evolution as a history is the idea," explained Quammen, multi-award winning naturalist and science writer.
Quammen points out that Darwin devoted a chapter to answering any potential questions that critics might have about the theory of evolution.

In chapter six of On the Origin of Species, entitled Difficulties on Theory, Darwin argues with himself as he answers every criticism that arose from his own departure from Christianity.

"He wasn't just talking about the grandeur of an idea but rather the grandeur of life itself. Its biological diversity gives joy and meaning to Darwin's own life," Quammen said.

The latter discussion of the lecture focused on Darwin's basics for natural selection. The concept of natural selection centers around the idea of the survival of the fittest. Species will adapt and develop to ensure existence by any means necessary.

Quammen descried three key points to illustrate Darwin's concept of natural selection. First, offspring tend to resemble their parents (principle of inheritance). Second, offspring do vary somewhat from their parents as they are not exact replicas (principle of variation). Lastly, life on our little planet is crowded.

Quammen sums it up by saying that crowding leads to competition, which then results in individual species dying out.”

Jack “Dr. Death” Kevorkian

http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/04/27/17791/
Amy Beth Arkawy writes about Jack “Dr. Death” Kevorkian:

“With the premiere of HBO’s new film “You Don’t Know Jack,” the spotlight is once again on controversial Dr. Jack Kevorkian. While Al Pacino offers what Kevorkian himself labels a “superb” performance, the real Kevorkian made the media rounds last week, making appearances with Anderson Cooper, Bill Maher and Neil Cavuto.

HBO has pulled the plug on the “Real Time” clip, which featured a lively interchange between kindred spirit Maher. Kevorkian playfully talked about prison, religion, even his quirky, macabre art work. But he continued to display his spunky, outspoken nature as he lambasted the medical profession. “Doctors are cowards, ” he exclaimed, “they know what is right but won’t do it.”

In a candid conversation with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto, Kevorkian took on his notorious nickname, “Dr. Death,” religion and health reform. Cavuto even tried to cajole Kevorkian into admitting his own miserable life ( even bringing up a failed engagement fifty years ago!) propelled the doctor’s controversial calling. Kevorkian acknowledged he ” wasn’t very likable, because of my abrasive personality,” but maintained what is obvious to so many: his was a mission of mercy.

Throughout Kevorkian contended that his patients–most of whom he said were Catholic–never “asked me to kill them. They say, ‘Doctor end my suffering.’”

I grew to like Kevorkian thanks to Pacino’s complex and honest portrayal. I like him ever me after seeing the real man make yet another stand.

Cavuto tried to pierce through Kevorkian’s agnosticism, asking: “Wouldn’t it be a kick if at the end of your life you saw God? What would you say to him?”
Kevorkian: “I’d look at the big man on the throne and say, ‘why didn’t you make me smarter?’”

If more people were half as smart–and compassionate– as Jack Kevorkian the world would surely be a better place.”

There is no reason as to why people should suffer. A person who wishes to have someone end his/her suffering should be granted that wish. Kevorkian understands that perfectly.

Ask the Founders

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/john_nichols/article_a7b2592b-d735-5886-a997-703770877dc4.html

Contrary to what the religious fundamentalists of America will tell you, the Founding Fathers would approve of the decision that ruled the National Day of Prayer as unconstitutional:

“Federal Judge Barbara Crabb recalled an inconvenient truth with her ruling that the National Day of Prayer, which was established by Congress in 1952, is unconstitutional.

Specifically, the judge for the Western District of Wisconsin determined that the prayer law “violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

But the broader message is really about the spirit of the Constitution.
Though it is too seldom acknowledged by contemporary politicians and jurists, the initiators of the American experiment were keenly aware of the dangers associated with the imposition by civil government of religious tests, requirements and calendars.

Men of the Enlightenment who had rejected the cruel construct of a “divine right of kings” and waged a revolution against a colonial empire that claimed its imperial reach was sanctioned by God, they knew the folly of mixing religion and politics.
And they were explicit in their determination that the United States must not go the way of the old monarchies of Europe, where state religions, state prayers and attendant rules and regulations served as the apparatus for constraining popular discourse, dissent and diverse expressions of faith.

So they established a Constitution that left no doubt of their determination that the United States would not dictate which religion was superior or inferior, or require an expression of faith as a qualification for citizenship.

They were explicit in this regard, weaving into the initial outline of the American experiment a blunt rejection of any “religious test.”

“The senators and representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States,” reads Article VI, section 3, of the U.S. Constitution.

In case anyone missed the point, when the Constitution was amended to include a Bill of Rights, written into the first of the amendments were two specific declarations:
The first enshrined the principle that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” This meant that the federal government could not identify a preferred faith or set of prayers or practices. In effect, it barred the establishment of the sort of state religions that kings, czars, kaisers and potentates had employed to provide a fantasy of “moral cover” for their abuses of power.

The First Amendment also recognized that the government had no authority to prohibit the “free exercise” of religion, meaning that the state could not tell Americans how to pray or not pray, how to worship or not worship, how to express their faith or not express their faith.

If there was any lack of clarity, the matter should have been resolved one year into the tenure of the nation’s first president, George Washington, when he used a letter to the Hebrew congregation in Newport, R.I., to hail the “enlarged and liberal policy” that said: “All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.”

America did not “tolerate” religious diversity. It embraced that diversity, welcoming Christians and Jews, believers and nonbelievers into a polity where, Washington explained, “The government … gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

To maintain that happy circumstance, Thomas Jefferson explained in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other 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 and state.”

While the founders survived, there was no mystery about their “original intent” with regard to that wall of separation between church and state. Indeed, when the greatest of our public services, the post office, was developed, it was determined without serious debate that mail would be delivered seven days a week.

Only in the late 1820s did some Christian groups object. And their complaints were quickly rejected by Congress, which adopted the position — stated by Kentucky Sen. Richard M. Johnson — that: “our government is a civil and not a religious institution.”

A century later, long after the last of the founders and those inspired and instructed by them had died, Sunday mail service was stopped. It was not until the mid-1950s, in response to Joe McCarthy’s “red scare,” that the motto “In God We Trust” was approved by Congress, along with the initial National Day of Prayer legislation.

Crabb’s ruling, in a case initiated by the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, seeks to restore Jefferson’s “wall of separation between church and state.” It is not her point or purpose to undermine the practice of religion. “It is important to clarify what this decision does not prohibit,” the judge wrote. “Of course, ‘no law prevents a (citizen) who is so inclined from praying’ at any time. And religious groups remain free to ‘organize a privately sponsored (prayer event) if they desire the company of like-minded’ citizens. The president too remains free to discuss his own views on prayer. The only issue decided in this case is that the federal government may not endorse prayer in a statute.”

Anticipating the outcry her decision would stir, Crabb continued: “I understand that many may disagree with that conclusion and some may even view it as a criticism of prayer or those who pray. That is unfortunate. A determination that the government may not endorse a religious message is not a determination that the message itself is harmful, unimportant or undeserving of dissemination. Rather, it is part of the effort to ‘carry out the founders’ plan of preserving religious liberty to the fullest extent possible in a pluralistic society.’ The same law that prohibits the government from declaring a National Day of Prayer also prohibits it from declaring a National Day of Blasphemy.”

That is a reasoned judgment, a judgment grounded in a core value of the American experiment. Indeed, if it took courage for Judge Crabb to issue this historic ruling, it was the courage of the founders.”

Spiritual or Physical?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/apr/28/noah-ark-relic-discovery-turkey

Adam Rutherford comments on some of Christianity’s more absurd (“tangible”) tenets:

“If faith concerns the spiritual, the eternal your soul and ill-defined things like that, why are churches so preoccupied with the physical?

Of course, the media love the tangible tenets of religion. The absurdity of the Turin Shroud, a sheet that is claimed to have covered the dead Jesus, was in the news last week as it's back on display after yet another round of pointless analysis. Next week, the pope is due to check it out, and do a bit of praying in front of it.
And yesterday, the Daily Mail felt it necessary to cover in depth a group of fundamentalist Christians who are convinced they have found bits of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat. I say convinced, but I must give them credit for showing some doubt: Yeung Wing-cheung, from Hong Kong's Noah's Ark Ministries International, said "it's not 100% that it is Noah's Ark but we think it is 99.9% that this is it.'

This is the bit of religion that demands ridicule. Christian fundamentalists are of course silly people. This primarily 20th-century phenomenon uses James Ussher's silly biblical generation calculation to assert duff theology and literal truth to Genesis, which while quite elegant in its prose, is also quite silly. The story of Noah is not just silly but hateful, and impossible. Leave aside the story that a pair of lions would wage terror over all the other animals, or the hideous genetic bottleneck that would result from repopulating an ecosystem with such small samples. Ark proof comes around every few years. In the latest discovery these fanatics claim carbon dating on a bit of Turkish wood to determine that it was from the time of Noah's flood. It might be worth mentioning how creationists often assert flaws in carbon dating as a means to refute evolution. But nailing inconsistencies in fundamentalist arguments pointlessly uses up irretrievable time. I just don't understand why anyone would want to hunt for physical proof of a story that revealed your God to be a bit of a genocidal arsehole.

During the second millennium after Jesus' murder religious authorities became a tad fixated on demonstrating the physical aspects of their culture. Relics became big business in the middle ages, with every bit of nail or wood from the cross, or drops of blood from mediocre saints being targets for pilgrimage. That continues to this day, with millions of people expected to visit the Turin Shroud. The Holy See displays a noncommittal ambivalence towards relics that doesn't approve, but doesn't really condemn. I guess we're all rather used to that from the Vatican nowadays. And so again it demands ridicule.

So what is it about physical evidence that is so interesting to certain religious types? Relics are said to bring you closer to the original owner, and veneration is not idolatry. In Jesus, some of the other grisly bringers of proximity include the sponge he sucked vinegar from, the spear that he was finished off with, his umbilical cord and the best of all, the Holy Prepuce: Jesus' foreskin. I like to think that when Charlemagne felt jolly close to Christ when he handed over an 800-year-old foreskin to Pope Leo III, and then they all had a bit of snigger.

It seems to me that the physical aspects of Christianity are so much less interesting than the intellectual. Did Jesus exist? No one knows. And while I understand the import of his actual existence and more significantly his gory death, what's far more fascinating is that billions of people believe in him. Did Noah's ark exist? No. But there are diluvian myths in many cultures and religion, and that's interesting. The problem with relics is that they are fundamentally silly, and that limits discourse to the absurd.”

Defeat for Separation of Church and State

http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/92179769.html

A case to have a nativity scene removed from public property has been dismissed:

“A judge has dismissed a lawsuit that tried to prevent Manitowoc County from displaying a Nativity scene on the courthouse lawn during the Christmas season.

U.S. District Judge William Griesbach says the lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation has been rendered moot.

He says the county's new policy will allow all citizens to seek permits to have displays on the courthouse grounds regardless of their religious or political content.

The foundation, a Madison-based group of atheists and agnostics, argued the county violated the separation of church and state by allowing a Catholic group to erect the Nativity scene for decades.”

Obama Hatred: The Religion

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1165443.html

Obama hatred is alive and well in Israel. Bradley Burston calls it a religion:

“When I was young, I was taught that the purpose of religion was to foster compassion through lovingkindness, to seek peace by example, to perform with human hands the work of angels.

Then I moved to the Holy Land.

If ever the history of religion were written in blood, it was here. If ever religion has drowned history in blood, this is the venue. If ever the sword has beaten the plowshare, whether brandished along with the Old Testament, the New, or the Koran - we can show you the spot. And, more recently, if ever religion has succeeded in keeping peace, reconciliation, even the United Nations and the United States, at bay, ours is the place and time.

So it should have come as no surprise, I suppose, that a cluster of people here, people who cloak themselves in the garb of the pious, have decided to marry their furious loathing of Barack Obama to the custom of their faith, and to do what some in America have been doing for more than a year now: Hating Barack Obama as a new form of religious observance.

Once, on the holiday of Lag B'Omer, which falls this Saturday night, children cast into bonfires images of Adolf Hitler and others who have preached and in some cases practiced the mass killing of Jews.

This year, ahead of the Saturday night observance, professed followers of Meir Kahane have openly boasted of preparing effigies of the American president for distribution and incineration in bonfires across the country.

"There is no doubt that now the enemy of the Jewish people is Barack Hussein Obama," said pro-Kahane activist Noam Federman, a leader of the campaign.

"Obama is the most anti-Semitic president the U.S. has ever had," Federman told Maariv daily's website last week. "The time had come for our blind politicians to wake up and understand that you can't make policy according to the obsession of an Israel-hater."

These are not the rational people who oppose, take issue and disagree with Obama over his policies, his views, his performance. Not at all. These are the people who execrate the man, who despise him with every cell of their being, whose rage at his very name roars like napalm.

The irrational, some might say, rapturous hatred of Obama is not new, of course. Nor are the sulphur and the poison which inform Obama's revilers in the pro-Israel hard right.

Until now, though, many in the Obama-hate movement have confined their religious revivals to the relative privacy and safety of the Mother Church of All Satans, the internet.

The Kahanists, the dedicated Luddites of Zionism, have little use for discretion. They take their obscenity public at every opportunity. This one, however, is, even for them, a whole new level of low.

Part of it is the imagery. Fire is to the Jewish imagination what rope is to the African-American.

But that is only part of it. Because, wherever it is - whether the issue is health care, student loans, immigration policy or settling East Jerusalem - when taken to the extreme, the religion of reviling Obama is, at its core, the sacrament of hatred.

For that reason, it matters little that extremists can practice so-exisistence in hating Obama's guts, whether they may see themselves as God-fearing Jews or God-fearing anti-Semites.

What has Barack Obama done to the Kahanists, or, for that matter, to Israel and the Jews as a whole? He has endorsed a two-state solution - something which George Bush also did. Obama has pushed for a settlement freeze [Bush's road map, Phase One, includes the clause: "Israel also freezes all settlement activity"]. And, in a precedent which somehow also managed to draw the ire of Obama-haters, he has held Passover seders at the White House, which neither Bush nor any other president ever had.

What the Kahanists are saying, in effect, is that there is no longer any difference between the Occupation on one hand, and Judaism on the other.

In that sense, one may reasonably view the pro-Kahane camp as among them worst anti-Semites of all.

"That Hussein Obama who wants to freeze construction in Jerusalem every minute, he would even like to just freeze Israel over. He pretends to be a friend but actually he loves Islam. He is an anti-Semite, nothing less," Kahane disciple and effigy maker Bentzy Gobstein told Israel Army Radio last Thursday.

"We want to educate children while they are small," Gobstein continued. "When you burn it, have a Lag B'Omer bonfire with children - education begins with children.

"We want to teach them that we have to trust God, not Obama."

What is it, in the hearts of these people, who call themselves religious, whom the love or the fear of God should have filled with an openness toward humankind, that makes them hate this man with such fury?

Why is this President different from all other presidents?

They call him every manner of names - Communist, Muslim, racist, Jew-hater. They call him all manner of names, and he is none of these.

Cuurious, isn't it, that they never mention what he actually is. Which is, for many of them, enough reason to revile him, all by itself: Black.”

Here is more proof of how the right of Israel and America are so intertwined with each other. Both believe in this irrational nonsense.

Bad Science with Deepak Chopra

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/04/26/chopra042610.DTL

In a recent article titled “Is it time to quit believing?” Deepak Chopra argues that a belief in God can lead to a search for evidence for God. He bases this idea on the lecture of William James:

“In 1896, long before brain imaging and the discovery of DNA, the famous Harvard philosopher and psychologist William James published a famous lecture called "The Will to Believe." It contains one idea that is a revelation. James found a way for science to lead to God instead of defeating God. Let me give the revelation a context. James thought that people had a right, perhaps even a drive, to say that God existed, and even though they couldn't offer evidence for their religious beliefs, it sustained them with comfort, hope, and so on.

Atheists scoff at this rationale, claiming that it's childish to fall back on fairy tales about God just because they make you feel better. Far better to grow up and see what's before your eyes: the material world operating through random chance without the slightest sign of a higher intelligence, moral authority, afterlife, and all the other trappings of religion. But James was ahead of this argument.

He asked, what if believing in God actually makes new evidence appear? That was the revelation, because while believing in ghosts or Cinderella won't make either one appear (so far as we know), God is an aspect of our own consciousness. The deity is continuous with the human mind. When Jesus said, "Seek the kingdom of Heaven within," he was pointing to this very continuity. I am paraphrasing James and to some extent going beyond his lecture. But what fascinates me is that he hit upon a familiar notion among seekers today: "You will only see it if you believe it."”

Ignoring the obvious scientific problem with this argument, that you are starting with a theory and collecting evidence to prove the idea, it is best that we look at James’ argument itself.

"The Will to Believe" was a lecture delivered by William James, first published in 1896, which defended the adoption of beliefs as hypotheses and self-fulfilling prophecies even without prior evidence of their truth. Many philosophers would agree with James that we have a right to hypothesize and to adopt self-fulfilling beliefs without evidence; James, however, extends this idea to argue that, using this doctrine, adopting beliefs like God, freewill, possibility, and morality would cause evidence to come into existence, thus verifying beliefs that could not have been verified otherwise. James' rationale for this more controversial idea is in combining it with his pragmatic theory of truth, the idea that a belief is verified if it causes better interaction with the world. For example, while one may have some doubts as to the existence of God, the adoption of such a belief as a hypothesis, even without finding evidence to remove all doubt, would cause one to succeed better in the world, thus verifying the belief. This does not entail that it will be verified for everyone, but rather, for many, that it would cause their lives to be better, thus making it true for them (see James' pluralism regarding truth).” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Will_to_Believe)

The concept is based on bad science. While it may not be going quite as far to say that one can imagine God into existence, it does turn God into this thing that is simply, out there. If we keep searching, eventually we will find it, whatever ‘it’ may be. This is why people like Chopra hide behind the smokescreen of their words. Using phrases such as, “aspect of our own consciousness” it makes it more difficult to define God. When you leave the concept wide open it is harder to disprove, though easy to prove if any evidence fits this wide concept. Reading Chopra’s arguments I always have difficulty figuring out what exactly it is he’s talking about. I suspect many theists feel the same way and I’m sure he wants it that way.

Bertrand Russell pointed out a major flaw in “The Will to Believe” argument:

“The Inquisition rejected Galileo's doctrine because it considered it untrue; but Hitler accepts or rejects doctrines on political grounds, without bringing in the notion of truth or falsehood. Poor William James, who invented this point of view, would be horrified at the use which is made of it; but when once the conception of objective truth is abandoned, it is clear that the question, 'what shall I believe?' is one to be settled, as I wrote in 1907, by 'the appeal to force and the arbitrament of the big battalions,' not by the methods of either theology or science” (Bertrand Russell, "The Ancestry of Fascism", in The Will to Doubt, 1958, p102)

James’ argument doesn’t seem to acknowledge the possibility that the evidence could lead to a falsification of God. Whether or not you believe in the truth of your belief is based on your personal perception. It’s bad science.

National Christian Prayer Day II

http://www.sltrib.com/faith/ci_14984488

Is the National Prayer Day unconstitutional?

“Crabb's ruling is flawed.

The Establishment Clause bars the government from passing legislation to create an official religion or preferring one religion over another. The prayer proclamation makes no attempt to do either. In fact, the 2009 National Day of Prayer proclamation signed by President Barack Obama makes reference to "all great religions."”
So what about the non-religious? Notwithstanding Obama’s proclamation, the event was a Christian one during the Bush years and many on the right will continue to insist that’s the case.

“Nothing in the proclamation precludes those who do not believe in prayer from abstaining. Furthermore, each religious group can ignore or recognize the day in its own way.”

Right, no one is being forced to participate but the government is still endorsing a religious position and saying that religion is better than no religion.

“For evangelicals, the National Day of Prayer is not only an acknowledgment of our nation's history but a plea for God to guide us through our future as he guided our founders through the past.”

Why is a government sanctioned day needed to plea to God? True believers would pray each and every day regardless of whether government approved of it.
To answer the question: yes it is unconstitutional. It is still an endorsement of religion, even if it endorses all religions.

National Christian Prayer Day

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/04/national-prayer-day/39707/

The National Prayer Day is a Christian event through and through:

“Expect National Prayer Day to be distinguished by particularly splashy displays of piety this year, thanks to a recent federal district court decision declaring congressional designation of an official prayer day unconstitutional -- a violation of First Amendment prohibitions on establishing religion. In a lengthy, carefully reasoned decision (in Freedom from Religion Foundation v Obama), Judge Barbara Crabb stressed that this particular government endorsement of a particular religious practice has absolutely no secular purpose, but she stayed an injunction of Prayer Day pending the predictable appeal of her decision. So, religious people who think they need government permission and participation to pray, or those who simply seek government applause for praying, can still look forward to this year's official celebrations of prayer on May 6th.

I suspect they can probably look forward to the same celebration next year and in many years to follow. The Justice Department quickly announced its intent to appeal, to higher judicial powers at least, and should this case eventually make its way to the Supreme Court (as it might if the Court of Appeals upholds the lower court), it seems likely to result in a final ruling affirming congressional power to declare a national day of prayer. Or so secularists might hope: a final Supreme Court ruling invalidating Prayer Day would sorely tempt Congress and the states to pass a constitutional amendment qualifying the First Amendment ban on establishing religion.

In offering this prediction, I am not criticizing the District Court decision, which I found persuasive, legally sound, and sensitive to the danger of National Prayer Day generating precisely the sort of sectarian religious strife that the Founders sought to avoid when they barred state established religions. Judge Crabb cited numerous complaints from members of minority faiths about the "hi-jacking" of Prayer Day by conservative Christians. Joel Oster, Senior Legal Counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), disputes the prevalence of these complaints, suggesting that they are isolated incidents instigated by "special interest groups that create their own devisiveness." But it is indisputable that the conservative National Day of Prayer Task Force, chaired by Shirley Dobson, (wife of Focus on the Family Founder James Dobson) has played a leading role in recent Prayer Days. (Dobson was initially named in the Prayer Day challenge; ADF represented her and won dismissal of all claims against her.)

Why was Dobson, a private citizen, ever included in this challenge to government power? President George W. Bush allowed Dobson's task force to take charge of National Prayer Day, as Steven Waldman writes, which greatly undermined any pretense that it was a non-sectarian celebration of religiosity: the Task Force's mission includes commitments to "Foster unity within the Christian Church" and "Publicize and preserve America's Christian Heritage." It pays rhetorical tribute to unspecified "Judeo-Christian" principles (which still exclude many religious and irreligious minorities,) but the Task Force's volunteer application form makes its rigid sectarianism quite clear: prospective volunteers are asked to affirm that "the Holy Bible is the inerrant word of the Living God" and that "Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only One by which I can achieve salvation."

It's not surprising that the ecumenically inclined President Obama has a much more attenuated relationship with this most un-ecumenical Task Force and equally unsurprising that the Task Force has attacked him for not holding formal Prayer Day events (in which it might be featured). Last year, Obama compounded this insult, or injury, by issuing a National Prayer Day Proclamation deemed "secular in nature" by Brent Bozell's CNS.news.com, which stressed that the president only mentioned God once, "refers to people who don't believe in God," and "does not refer to the Bible but to the "Golden Rule" -- or the 'ethic of reciprocity' sometimes linked to verses in the Bible and other religious books." But, underscoring the divisiveness occasioned by an official prayer day, the Interfaith Alliance has praised Obama's 2009 proclamation for its "inclusiveness," lamenting that in "past years the National Day of Prayer was taken over by a group of religious exclusivists led by Shirley Dobson of Focus on the Family. In past years Mrs. Dobson's group, the National Day of Prayer Task Force has represented itself in a way that led many to believe that they were the government sanctioned National Day of Prayer organizers."

This was the political battle into which the Freedom From Religion Foundation tossed the grenade of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a 1952 federal law requiring the President to designate a National Day of Prayer. (In 1988, Congress named the first Thursday in May as Prayer Day.) Judge Crabb dismissed the predictable justifications for Prayer Day: it is not simply an innocuous act of ceremonial deism; encouraging Americans to pray is qualitatively different from printing in God We Trust on our dollar bills. It is not clearly supported by historical precedent (the various Thanksgiving Day proclamations dating back to 1789 served a "secular purpose of giving thanks" and did not actively encourage all citizens to pray or "help particular religious groups organize"); and it is not saved by an appearance of non-sectarianism. Putting aside the virtual impossibility of a non-sectarian prayer proclamation (diverse religions do not have a unified theory of prayer) and assuming the non-denominationalism of National Prayer Day, "the government's religious conduct cannot survive scrutiny under the establishment clause simply because it endorses multiple religions instead of one," Judge Crabb observed.

What's the harm of National Prayer Day? It equates prayerfulness and patriotism, as its congressional history makes clear; it sends a "message of exclusion" to religious minorities and other heretics, and, again, it threatens sectarian divisiveness. What's the harm of invalidating Prayer Day? National Prayer Day Task Force leader Shirley Dobson hysterically characterized the District Court decision as an "an attack upon our religious freedoms," but Dobson would remain free to pray the first Thursday in May and every other day of the year in the absence of an official prayer day. The Alliance Defense Fund claims that "National Prayer Day provides an opportunity for all Americans to pray voluntarily according to their own faith." Not exactly. The First Amendment provides all Americans with the freedom to pray "according to their own faiths" and the freedom to create their own opportunities for prayer without government interference; and these fundamental freedoms are more likely to be threatened than enhanced by government sponsorship of prayer. When some Americans seek congressional or presidential approval of their prayers, they're not seeking religious liberty but religious power, or influence at least, over other Americans of different faiths.

Shirley Dobson may believe her own rhetoric and may even feel oppressed by the absence of an invitation to pray with the president, but Alliance Defense Fund lawyers seem smart enough to know (and politic enough not to concede) that religious liberty is not contingent on an official prayer day. So what is at stake in this litigation? National Prayer Day is important because "it's part of our history," ADF lawyer Joel Oster stresses. An attack on Prayer Day "is an attack on history." Oster scoffs at Judge Crabb's efforts to distinguish presidential Thanksgiving Day proclamations by denying that they constituted calls to pray, and he points out that the Judge herself did not rely on her interpretation of these proclamations or other historic examples of official religious exercises. "She hit the nail on the head when she said she didn't care about history," he asserts, and he's right that this case is partly about history and its role in constitutional interpretation.

The view of America as a Christian nation, founded on Christian principles is quite controversial, to say the least, and reflects some unsupportable revisionist history (exemplified by the Texas Board of Education textbook standards that delete Thomas Jefferson from a list of influential political thinkers). But putting that controversy aside, or even conceding for the sake of argument the presumptive Christianity of a few Founders, the hard question remains: what difference should it make to judges interpreting the Constitution today? Are historical customs and ideals reference points, or mandates?

Judge Crabb unequivocally rejected the proposition that "religious conduct that would otherwise violate the establishment clause may be upheld for the sole reason that the practice has a long history...If one were to read the establishment clause as permitting any practice in existence around the time of the framers, this would likely mean that the government would be free to discriminate against all non-Christians." So, while "early Congress's political actions" are "relevant," she observes (quoting Justice Souter,) they are not "determinative ... of constitutional meaning." This view is countered by the originalist approach to constitutional jurisprudence, articulated most famously by Justice Scalia and shared by ADF's Joel Oster. In his view, the First Amendment's ban on established religion was "only intended to prohibit a state church," not official religious exercises, like prayer or Ten Commandment displays.

Oster and other advocates of official religiosity (and official Christianity in particular) aim to reverse the "last fifty years or so" of establishment clause rulings, which they regard as "inconsistent" with the Founder's intent. In this view, the Supreme Court's 1962 decision invalidating the New York State school prayer marked the beginning of a radical departure from the path of constitutional righteousness. (I recited this prayer resentfully every day, throughout elementary school, although I can't say I was harmed, much less indoctrinated by it (which didn't make it right). Instead, compulsory recitation of the prayer, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance, only increased my sense of alienation from religion and nurtured a healthy distrust of nationalism and other collectivisms.)

Official school prayers seem unlikely to be reinstated, thanks partly to the difficulty of fashioning one prayer that satisfies all prayerful and politically influential religionists. But the Supreme Court is gradually adopting a more permissive view of government sponsored religious activities. It's progress, or regress, is fitful -- in 2005, the Court ruled for and against two respective official Ten Commandment displays -- but the trend seems clear. Just this week, in Salazar v Buono, the Court upheld a controversial congressional land transfer designed to allow a large cross to remain on display in the Mojave National Preserve. In 2007, in Hein v Freedom from Religion Foundation, the Court struck down FFRF's challenge to executive branch expenditures in support of the Bush Administration's "faith-based" initiatives.

The Hein case was instructive, but its lessons may have been lost on FFRF when it challenged the National Day of Prayer. The decision to initiate a constitutional challenge like this should be strategic as well as principled, involving political calculations as well as legal analysis and focusing partly on the consequences of winning or losing. The Supreme Court is not entirely sympathetic to secularism or enthusiastic about separating church and state. An important legal victory for secularists in a lower federal court can be transformed into a costly legal defeat by the Supremes. In Hein, FFRF won a round in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, but ultimately it succeeded only in advancing the aims of its religious opponents, when the Supreme Court reversed on appeal and used the occasion to limit the rights of FFRF and taxpayers, in general, to challenge presidential violations of the establishment clause. The court didn't reach the merits of FFRF's claim; it simply shut the courthouse door in its face.

I'd be pleased to be proven wrong in predicting a similar outcome in FFRF v Obama, the National Prayer Day case, which, in my view, was rightly decided by the District Court. But the legal principles and precedents governing establishment clause cases are contested, and judges tend to apply them according to their own religious and civic values, as well as their views of history and constitutional jurisprudence.

Justice Scalia, for example, believes that "governmental invocation of God is not an establishment;" he is sympathetic to "the interest of the overwhelming majority of religious believers in being able to give God thanks and supplication as a people," and he is utterly unconcerned with the feelings of exclusion claimed by non-believers and members of religious minorities in establishment clause challenges: the First Amendment "permits (the) disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists." (It's tempting to attribute Scalia's disdain for the feelings of atheists and other minorities to his own religiosity, but he is generally impatient with "touch-feely" claims of harm, Dahlia Lithwick points out.)

What's wrong with Scalia's approach? He is not proposing to deny religious minorities the right to practice their religions, and while he is quite dismissive of irreligious people, he is not proposing official campaigns to convert them. He is demanding that people of minority faiths and no faiths learn to tolerate their feelings of alienation and exclusion occasioned by official alignment with the religious majority. He values the majority's desire for civic expressions of faith and the comfort derived from them over the minority's desire for inclusion; (so he does value some feelings after all).

Should the majority rule in cases involving official religious displays, invocations, or a congressionally mandated day of prayer? General references to God on our currency don't have much practical effect on the exercise of anyone's liberty, although they do irritate some secularists. I'd agree with Justice Scalia that we don't have a constitutional right not to be irritated; nor should we expect the government to protect us from feeling alienated. But we do have a right to be free of official orthodoxies. Where does an irritation or a "feeling of exclusion" end and the imposition of orthodoxies begin? The Supreme Court could find an opportunity to consider that question again in FFRF v Obama; and if, by some miracle, the Court eventually strikes down National Prayer Day, it might just make a believer out of me.”

Godless Liberals?

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/spirited_atheist/2010/04/atheists_irreligiously_united_politically_divided.html

Susan Jacoby on the incorrect assumption that all atheists are big-government loving liberals:

“In the United States, largely as a result of the relatively recent, post-1980 alliance between the political and religious right, atheism and secularism have come to be identified in the public mind with political liberalism. "Secular liberal" is an epithet to the anti-intellectual segment of the right, which--as a number of conservative intellectuals have pointed out recently--is in the driver's seat among angry conservatives today. Implicit in this epithet is the belief that liberalism, secularism, and a liking for big government are linked. Nothing could be more ahistorical or less accurate about present-day secular America.

As regular readers of this blog know, I am both an atheist and a political liberal. I actually prefer to describe myself as a freethinker, because my views about religion and politics have been most strongly influenced by 18th-century Enlightenment freethought, as exemplified by Thomas Paine. Paine was as opposed to slavery, the death penalty, and rule by inherited wealth as he was to orthodox religion. He was not opposed to government per se, as some conservatives have misleadingly suggested, but to government of the few, by the few, and for the few. In his 1794 essay Agrarian Justice, he became the first social thinker to propose a system of old age and disability pensions that relied not on charity but on government support provided by all citizens.

My atheism makes me a libertarian on government intrusion into essentially private matters--from sex between consenting adults to medical decisions about how to end one's own life--but I am not an anti-government economic libertarian at all. Which is to say that I think one of the entirely proper roles of government is to take away some of the money I make and use it to provide health care for people in need, to regulate financial institutions that cheat the public, to operate public schools, and to initiate numerous activities intended to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. My government has the right to do this because I owe my living to one of the liberties guaranteed by my American citizenship--the opportunity to speak my mind and be paid for it. (Sarah Palin owes her living, on a much grander scale, to the same guarantee--but the freedom she loves so much is apparently the freedom to to keep every penny that she could earn only in America.)

There is another longstanding form of American secularist philosophy, descended not from Enlightenment freethought but from the 19th-century distortion of Darwin's theory of evolution known as social Darwinism. The modern descendants of the social Darwinists are cultural libertarians but economic conservatives, influenced in some instances, as their predecessors were, by pseudo-scientific convictions about racial intellectual superiority--which they attribute not to God but to nature itself. This strain of American secularism and atheism runs from the social Darwinists of the Gilded Age through the eugenicists of the early 20th century and the followers of Ayn Rand's so-called objectivism, to those within secular organizations today who insist on calling themselves skeptics, are offended by the depiction of secularists as humanists, and tend to be as opposed to government social programs as members of the religious right.

The essence of social Darwinism was its assertion (never made by Darwin) that the struggle of organisms for existence in nature was replicated by the struggle of humans within civilization. The poor were poor not because God had decreed it, as religious conservatives had claimed about slavery, but because they simply did not have the wits or the strength to be anything else. The inventor of social Darwinism (though he did not call it that) was the British philosopher Herbert Spencer, whose ideas received a much more favorable reception in Gilded Age America than in his native England. Spencer, not Darwin, coined the phrase "survival of the fittest" and applied it to human beings. (The best elucidation of social Darwinism's place in American intellectual history is still Richard Hofstadter's Social Darwinism in American Thought (1944).

Those who preached social Darwinism in the United States always claimed that their views were "scientific"--an adjective, when appended to what are essentially social philosophies, that is always a dead giveaway of their pseudo-scientific nature. Genuine science does not have to label itself scientific; pseudo-scientific thought does, in a vain effort to prevent being unmasked as mutton dressed as lamb. Thus, the adjective "scientific" often prefaced the decidedly unscientific, non-evidence based form of communism practiced in the Soviet Union. Plaudits to "scientific Communism" were supposed to prevent Russians from noticing that there was no food in the stores. In the United States, social Darwinists (some of whom, as free market disciples, now have a permanent address at right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute) have always claimed that any government reforms or regulations are attempts to interfere with the natural, scientifically based order of things.

William Graham Sumner, professor of political science at Yale from 1872 to 1910, was the prototypical secular, right-wing public intellectual. He explicitly compared Gilded Age tycoons to superior biological species that had emerged from eons of evolution and declared emphatically that men like J.P. Morgan and Henry Clay Frick were "a product of natural selection...just like the great statesmen, or scientific men, or military men." If all millionaires had emerged from fair competition, then they were best fitted to run society. (Sumner never addressed the question of whether the sons of tycoons were also superior by virtue of having been born to money.) Ayn Rand's turgid, didactic novels are nothing more than reheated Sumner.

Social Darwinism was always strongly linked with the eugencis movment, which had the same things to say about the intellectual inferiority of Jewish and Italian immigrants in the 1880s and 1890s that those who consider IQ tests scientifically unimpeachable have to say today about the intellectual inferiority of blacks. One would never know, from the comments of some atheists on this blog who seem convinced that IQ tests "prove" the intellectual superiority of whites, that many scientists argue that IQ tests measure only what people have learned within a given culture--not what their innate ability might be. Whatever supposedly scientific method has been used to measure intelligence--from 19th-century phrenology to today's psychological tests--the striking fact about generalizations regarding group intelligence is that they have always correlated with the group's economic status at a given historical moment. That is why many upper-class social Darwinists were convinced that East European Jewish immigrants were intellectually inferior at the turn of the century and would always remain so--and why we rarely hear such claims today.

The linkage between belief in the "scientifically proven" superiority of successful individuals and groups and opposition to government intervention in the economy is clear: If differences between the rich and the poor are really determined by natural evolution, and manifest themselves genetically, then government interference amounts to interference with nature. To me, this belief has a decidedly religious cast, and to find it, even in attenuated version, among atheists in the 21st century is befuddling. What could be more a matter of faith than the conviction that it is wrong for man to interfere with nature, whether through government or private effort? The average American life expectancy, around 40 at the turn of the century, has doubled--not primarily as a result of high-tech surgical procedures, drugs for the elderly, or even the common antibiotics introduced at mid-20th century but mainly as a result of improved sanitation and nutrition in the earliest decades of the century. Better sanitation--provided, let us not forget, by government--allowed many of those immigrants, then presumed to be genetically inferior, to live long into the century and send their children to high school and college. Had the children's genes magically improved?

It is impossible to determine the precise percentages in the split between political liberals and political conservatives among American atheists. We know that the religiously "unaffiliated," as the Pew Forum describes them, are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. That is no surprise, given the strong identification between the Republican Party and the religious right. I suspect, however, that the there are many more descendants of social Darwinists among atheists than is generally recognized. This political divide definitely reduces the influence of atheists in the culture at large, because it means that the only thing the two branches of atheism have in common is opposition to government intrusion in private life and to clear-cut violations of the separation of church and state. What's likely to happen (in fact it already is happening) is that secular liberals will make common cause with religious liberals on economic and social issues as well as some church-state separation issues. This alliance can be uneasy, however, because many of the religious liberals, like Jim Wallis, who now exert strong influence within the Democratic Party favor what I consider grave violations of church-state separation--such as the massive funneling of tax money for charitable endeavors through religious organizations.
For anti-government atheists, third-party libertarian tickets are the only realistic political option--unless they can swallow their distaste for the Republicans' anti-gay rights, pro-religion platforms. If history is any guide (and I think it is, despite the noise being made by the tea partiers right now), the success of any third party will prove ephemeral and will negate the possibility of secularist influence on the right.

Many religious critics of atheism have chastised atheists for considering themselves intellectually superior to believers. I do consider atheism, as a way of looking at the world, intellectually superior to faith in the supernatural (a characteristic of every religion). But I certainly do not consider all atheists intellectually superior to all religious believers. There is no such thing as "scientific atheism." There are atheists who respect the difference between real science and pseudo-science and those who do not. There are atheists who wish to use reason to promote social progress (yet another filthy Enlightenment notion) and those who use bogus reasoning as a club to assert their own superiority. It is depressing to see the great tool of reason used for the latter purpose by those atheists who have fallen for some of the most persistent pseudo-scientific beliefs in American intellectual history.”

Most of the atheists I know are left-wing thinkers. As for myself, I’m a Libertarian: in theory. Libertarianism requires a lot of faith in humanity. Faith I’m not quite willing to give to it yet. It is an ideal that we are all motivated by self-interest and by doing so we will help others through charitable work. Unfortunately, the evidence that this would work in the real world appears to be lacking. In the past I did lean quite far to the left but as I became an atheist and my opposition to the control religion can have over society grew, I found it difficult to reconcile that view with the opinion that government should have a strong hand in people’s lives. Therefore, aspirations for a libertarian ideal aside, I’d certainly support an approach that balances individual freedoms with moderate government control. Punish those who attain wealth through devious means that bring harm to people or the environment and leave those who do so honestly be.

In Defense of Atheism

http://www.impactnottingham.com/2010/04/in-defence-of-atheism/
“In Defense of Atheism”:

“During a trial at The Old Bailey in February 2010, a man was given no jail sentence for deliberately breaking a stranger’s jaw in an unprovoked attack. He was let off with community service and a fine. The judge reasoned that the accused merited no harsher punishment because he was religious, and therefore unlikely to reoffend. The decision highlights the bizarre, yet persisting, assumption that religious faith is somehow an indication of good character - that there is something intrinsically and self evidentially good about being religious.

Society supposes to believe in the morality of religion due to its moral teachings and the charity done by religious groups. However, if you do think religious people are moral, you must ask yourself why they are moral. Is it plausible that their morality comes from the teachings of the holy books and from a belief in heaven and fiery hell? The holy books of the monotheisms were written when humans had no understanding of bacteria, tectonic activity or electricity; when they believed the earth was a disk, and the sky a dome. Is anyone seriously suggesting that without these we wouldn’t know right from wrong? If the Jewish ancestors were not at the foot of Mount Sinai would we not understand that it is wrong to murder? If God were proven not to exist would we all immediately embark on lives of theft, murder and cruelty?
Virtuous behaviour by a believer, or on behalf of a religious organisation is not proof of the moral steadfastness of religion. It is not even argument in its favour. People of religious charity did not originally lead self-centered and selfish lives until instructed by scripture to donate their money and free time to others. Such an argument goes nowhere in explaining the good actions done without supernatural consideration or inducement. With the claim that religion is inseparable from ethics and morality they are conceding that if it were not for faith, they would lead a lives of unbridled immorality. Is it ethical to be good only because you fear punishment? A person who led a good life only because they feared hell would go straight to hell.

Morality is part of human nature. It is also in the nature of a large number of animal species that don’t claim to be divinely inspired. If you see a child trying to run into a stream of traffic, something tells you what you ought to be doing about it. Equally, if you think of the worst thing you have ever done, the action of which you are least proud, and that you would least like to have widely known about, it undoubtedly pales in comparison to the actions of Dr Harold Shipman. Dr Shipman took great pleasure in murdering people who trusted him. Although you are ashamed of what you did, you think: “Yeah, but I’d never do that, I wouldn’t, and no one needs to tell me why I wouldn’t’.”

Morality is effortless, it’s innate, and doesn’t need to be taught to children. Even an 18-month year old child will try to comfort someone they see in distress. The argument is brilliantly summed up by Christopher Hitchens: “name me an ethical statement made, or an action taken by a believer that could not have been performed by a non believer. As yet I have heard of none. However, if you ask an audience to name a wicked action directly attributable to religious faith, nobody has any difficulty in finding an example”.

In spite of the current pessimistic view of the declining morality of society, the historical trend is of a positive improvement in society’s moral outlook. Today’s views on race, gender, equality, war, torture and sexual orientation are wildly different from the widespread views of society at the beginning of the 20th Century, and even from the views of the 1950s. Mainstream views on all these topics have only improved. The standard of morality in society improves decade on decade, and it is only based on our own ethical intuitions, and on conversation with the ethical intuitions of others. The moral standard has advanced so far that even the actions of Hitler, widely regarded today as pushing the envelope of evil into unchartered territory, would not have even been noteworthy in the time of Genghis Khan.

In accordance with this shifting morality, people of faith choose to reject the holy pearls of wisdom that encourage death by stoning for, among other things, adultery, premarital sex, atheism, belief in another God and homosexuality. These teachings are in the holy texts not as metaphors or analogies but as explicit instructions. The monotheistic texts celebrate war, murder, and genocide. Even good old Jesus was clearly a fan of slavery. Religious believers instead choose to emphasise the teachings similar to the golden rule - to behave to others as you wish them to behave towards you. The golden rule is not unique to any religion or society past or present, in fact, almost every society in the history of the world had a version of this rule in its cultural teachings.

A large number of believers go through the holy texts picking out the nasty verses from the nice verses; they choose the teachings that conform to current secular, moral standards. Religion gets its morality from society, not the other way around. The social standard to which religion conforms is available to everyone, and it advances in parallel in everyone. The places in which the moral standard has not advanced are typically the places in which religion looms large. Equally, the most successful, prosperous and democratic countries are those in which state and religion are separated by law (the only legal exception is the United Kingdom, however, the UK plainly functions as a secular republic).

A common riposte by the faithful is that the 20th Century was the most secular period in human history, and produced such monsters as Hitler and Stalin. If we’re on the subject of dictators, however, Mussolini, Franco and Salazar were installed and maintained by the Catholic right wing. Hitler was a Catholic, and the Catholic Church said prayers to celebrate Hitler’s birthday until as late as April 1945. Stalin was also able to exploit the apparatus of subservience adroitly created by the Russian Orthodox Church. In response to this argument, it is only necessary to highlight the decision of the Pope in 2005 to announce that condom use could worsen the problem of HIV and AIDS in Africa. It is difficult to imagine how the Pope could have caused more misery and human suffering with fewer words. Equally the advance of stem cell research is held back due to the religious theory of ‘souls’, a theory, which is shown to be spurious by a short spurt of the most basic scientific analysis. In any case, is the ‘soul’ of a cluster of cells more important than the life of a six-year-old child with cerebral palsy? The religious bludgeonings in the Middle East are almost too obvious to mention. It must be noted, however, that the actions committed there are not done “in the name of religion”, which is a common get-out clause of the faithful, but under the direct instruction of Imams and Rabbis. The easiest response to this claim of the deficiency of secular morality is that there are no atheist suicide bombers.

The idea that religion, ethics and morality are intrinsically linked is promulgated alongside the taboo of criticising religion. Throughout human history no one has been able to provide any type of evidence for a supernatural being, in fact only an abundance of evidence to the contrary. However, it remains that people’s faith cannot be questioned because ‘it’s their religion’. Although it is not understood where human morality comes from, it certainly does not come from religious texts. Richard Dawkins describes a convincing evolutionary theory in The God Delusion. Stephen Fry, however, concludes the argument most eloquently: “we should never allow religion the trick of claiming that the altruistic, the morally strong, and the virtuous are in any way inventions of religion, or particular or peculiar to religion”. An argument that claims morality stems from religion would be equally as convincing as an argument for an all loving, all powerful God who kills tens of thousands of people every year in natural disasters, who only chose to reveal himself after 100,000 years of human existence, whose only method of getting his son to earth was to impregnate a Palestinian virgin, and then to have all subsequent revelations in the same district.”

I’d say this is more of an offense against religion than a defense of atheism.