Recovering From Religion?

The author of the book The God Virus has started a new website to help people "recover from religion."

If you consider yourself agnostic or questioning your "faith" this is a good site to check out.

HERE'S THE SITE

Why Did Jesus Die Today?

Re-post from my other site I used to blog on, enjoy!

So far I have asked 2 very religious friends, and one of them even asked a priest...

and nobody has a very good answer.

The Catholic priest stated the following:

Humans were created with free will. This free will allows us to act how we wish. We can do good things and we can do bad things. When we sin, our sin reaches out "into infinity" and thus out to god because "god is infinite." However, for some reason, god created us so that we can sin into infinity, but not ask for forgiveness into infinity. So, therefore, we cannot properly ask for his forgiveness.

Hence, to remedy this problem, god sent his only son to save us from our sins. Please recall that the Trinity says that there is a Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (spirit). Three separate, but three all in ONE.

So God sent himself in the "Son" form to die on the cross in order to save us from our sins. And by dying he apparently allowed us to have eternal salvation in Heaven.

So essentially, god had to send himself in Jesus form to earth to suffer and die on the cross in order to apologize to himself for OUR sins because we couldn't do it...

That does not sound like love... but rather circular lack of reasoning nonsense...

But I am open to someone else explaining why Jesus had to die on the cross to save us.

Atheist Student vs. Religious Professor

My professor (who is a Catholic deacon) spent the first two days of class bashing atheists and specifically, some well-known scientists and skeptics (Galileo and Dawkins to name a few), so in my first homework assignment, we had to write a "Spiritual Autobiography" this is a clip of what I included in it:

"I have to say that I respectfully disagree with the slides you showed the first day of class in regard to atheism. Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Chiang Kai-shek, Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Lenin, and Pol Pot did not kill people because they were atheist. They killed people because of their own radical dogma. Atheism does not have a dogma, a text, or a mission statement. There is no Church of the Atheist. Just as radical religious views can be deadly, so can radical non-religious views. Additionally, I highly doubt that all of the people who helped to carry out their atrocities were atheists as well. And, often times these leaders would invoke the name of "God" in order to get people to follow them. Religion can be a very helpful vehicle to perform both good and evil.

As for the chart you showed that seemed to say that religious people were morally superior to atheists and less religious persons, I must respectfully disagree once more. I think there is something to say about those who do good things for the sake of doing good things, and those who do things so that they can avoid punishment in the "afterlife." So overall, I must respectfully disagree. I think that you may have given atheists and agnostics an unfair shake on the first day of class."

Anyway, I turned in that paper today. But GUESS WHAT!!!

The ongoing assault continued today...

For starters, here's a quote he showed the class on the big screen:

"Science is much closer to myth than a scientific philosophy is prepared to admit. It is one of the many forms of thought that have been developed by man, and not necessarily the best. It is conspicuous, noisy, and impudent, but it is inherently superior only for those who have already decided in favor of a certain ideology, or who have accepted it without ever having examined its advantages and limits." ~ Paul Feyerabend

Immediately, I thought to myself... well that would sound right if you replaced the word "science" with the word "religion."

Let's have a look shall we:

"Religion is much closer to myth than a religious philosophy is prepared to admit. It is one of the many forms of thought that have been developed by man, and not necessarily the best. It is conspicuous, noisy, and impudent, but it is inherently superior only for those who have already decided in favor of a certain ideology, or who have accepted it without ever having examined its advantages and limits." ~ Me

Continuing on (It gets MUCH worse)...

Although the course I am in is titled Religion, Media & Communication and falls under the Journalism and Mass Communications title at the University I attend, I have yet to hear anything other than religious indoctrination, bad science, and unfounded opinion from my professor. Keep in mind that I attend the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. This is NOT a private school.

After taking the first two days of class to bash atheists and force his moral beliefs on us, my professor continued on today with more preaching (he is an ordained deacon in the Catholic church after all).

Today's offensive topics: God is the only way to peace, abortion is always wrong, and gay marriage leads to polygamy, incest, and pedophilia. I am paying to hear this crap?

Today my professor uttered the following words and immediately thereafter drew this diagram on the board:

"Because I am Catholic, I believe that human beings have a deep obligation to search for truth." Then, continuing on moments later he stated, "God is truth, so anyone searching for truth is trying to find God. God is love."

Diagram:

Humility & Love ---> Truth --->Justice--->Peace

He says that humility and love lead to truth. And truth (if you are paying attention here), as he said above is "God." Thus part of the lesson today was to tell the kids in the class that God is the only vehicle that can take us to justice and peace.

It gets worse.

Next he told us that the majority of Americans think that there should NEVER be an abortion, under any circumstance, once the baby's heart starts to beat. He continued on to say that there should be no debate over when life begins because "science has said for 100 years that life begins at conception."

It gets worse.

He then clearly ignored any instruction on logic or logical fallacies as he applied a slippery slope argument, while lecturing to the class of 45 students, to say that same-sex marriage is something that we can not allow. Continuing further, he likened same-sex marriage to that of polygamy and even a incestuous and potentially pedophilia-centered marriage between a father and his own daughter.

In an ominous tone, he asked the class if they truly wanted polygamy, incest and pedophilia, because that's what they would get if they were in favor of same-sex marriages.

For those of you who don't know me. I am openly homosexual. I have been in a relationship for almost 1 year. We plan on moving and getting married. And my heart almost exploded when he said this.

I tried to calm down. I raised my hand and said, "I have to disagree with you because what you just used to make your point was a slippery slope which, in a philosophy of logic course, is considered a logical fallacy. So I have to say that I disagree." What I really wanted to do was either walk out, or just punch the man in the face.

He essentially ignored what I said and continued on telling the class that he was right. I stopped listening to him for the rest of class. I should have walked out.

Belief in "God" Dropping Over Time

In 2000, belief in a personal "God" was at 86% in the United States with belief in some sort of a "Universal Spirit" at 8% and belief in neither a "God," nor a spirit (a.k.a. atheism) being at 5%.

Today, in 2008, the numbers have changed a little bit with 78% believing in a personal "God" (an 8% decrease), 15% believing in some sort of spirit, but not a personal god, (a 7% increase), and 6% being atheist (1% increase).

Other trends regarding religious belief show that the more educated a person is, the less likely they are to believe in a personal "God."

9% of those with a post-graduate degree are atheist, with another 19% in this group not having a personal "God," but some sort of belief in the potential of a universal spirit. Leaving 71% with a belief in a personal "God."

88% of those with a high school degree or less believe in "God."

Keep in mind this is just for America, belief in a "God" is lower in most of Europe.

Interestingly, the vast majority of leading scientist are not religious.

Corey shared this website with me and I have been addicted ever since, here's a video worth watching from Ted.com:




Some arguments against religious belief (CLICK ME)

Jesus & Holiday Joy: Codependent?

It's getting confusing...

I have recently discussed with numerous individuals the connection between "The Holidays" and religion.

Some people have said that it is possible to just enjoy the holidays without even having to worry about religion.

As a person who is as close to atheist as you can get without declaring it outright, I have to kind of disagree, as some people wont let you avoid religion, and here is some proof:

In Patchogue, New York, the annual boat parade that takes place on the Long Island river recently changed it's name from "Patchogue Christmas Boat Parade" to "Patchogue Boat Parade of Lights."

The result was religious backlash.

Essentially, the attitude of many was "It's our religion or the highway."

Apparently a boat parade carries some sort of religious importance?

I'm confused.

The famous fireworks company Grucci, (not to be confused with Gucci) who used to donate fireworks to the event, completely dropped its engagement with the event and severed its ties with the boat parade.

No donations to bring holiday joy this year :(

Why?

Well, the Grucci Fireworks vice president Philip Butler vehemently opposed the re-naming of the boat parade.

Christian folks called the re-naming "the secularization of Christmas."

Someone please tell me what part of the bible describes the holy boat parade?

Supporters of Grucci's VP pushed for area residents to avoid attending the parade on the Patchogue River.

The result?

Rather than the expected 1,500 person turnout, attendance dropped to around 1,000.

The religious outrage resulted in a parade lacking in firework prowess.

Hold on...I thought parades had nothing to do with religion?

Oh well, organizers said that the parade was still a success. Looks like a lot of CHRISTIAN folks missed out on all the fun.

...And they missed out on it all because Christians think that they own the holiday season.

(Hint to those who do not understand: There are Muslim, Jewish, AND Christian Holidays at this time of the year... oh yah, and don't forget Kwanzaa)