The whole "interventionist" aspect that most religious folk seem to share, is problematic for me, as it just seems so patently absurd to think that "praying" is expected to have an effect other than to alter the thinking of the person doing the praying.
Praying for rain to fall makes as much sense as expecting meditation to create rain, for the only value of prayer is as personal meditation, to calm, and even heal, one's own psyche.

This leap of faith that takes people from personal spiritual belief, to expectations of supernatural, magical occurrences to be the result of their personal meditations has always been obvious delusional behaviour, and the demand that all individuals, and all societies must pay due respect to such delusional behaviour is where I draw the line.

I am happy to ignore their delusional behaviour, when and where it does not seek to impose itself upon others, but I really balk at the demands for special privileges that are made by these people, as there is not a single reason to justify such demands.

Soren wrote on Aug 7^th, 2010 at 5:32pm:

It is not what I am doubting, but that I must doubt which is the point… That I must accept that the abyss of doubt necessarily and unassailably stands between me and the apprehension of absolute knowledge. While that may seem obvious, it is most commonly overlooked - its antithesis, manifesting in many, as a sense of certitude that owes little or nothing to art and everything to a naively arrogant and overwrought sense of faculty.

Soren wrote on Aug 7^th, 2010 at 5:32pm:

And yet a lack of doubt - absolute certainty – is that which theists claim for themselves as a testament and the clearest proof (no less) to their fidelity, their surrender, to god, relegating even the mention of doubt to the netherworld of the human condition and branding even its conscious pondering as evidence of the subject’s capitulation to the demonic. Doubt (or the mortal fear of its invincibility) becomes for the theist the state of mind that “dare not (or should rightly not) speak its name”, lest the theist fall by the wayside or succumb to darkness. Such fantastic claims of absolute certitude are so prevalent in religious consciousness that it has become almost a sine qua non of theism.

It is, however, certainly the stuff of great theatre!! Think of those scenes in “The Exorcist” where it was Father Damien’s doubt that the devil used against him. Of course, the true meaning of those scenes went deeper than just an inquiry into the consequences of a priest’s passive doubt – for who in their right minds would doubt the existence of the supernatural, having witnessed Regan’s possession, in real life? No, Father Damien was being taunted for having once doubted at all… Theism’s sin of sins for which only the most sincere, austere and dramatic atonement is redemptive.

Soren wrote on Aug 7^th, 2010 at 5:32pm:

It is an honest (and transformative) act to stand at the abyss of doubt and acknowledge its invincibility. Neither arrogating to oneself any claims of transcendent faculty nor denial of its ubiquitous presence.

Soren wrote on Aug 7^th, 2010 at 5:32pm:

My pillars? That doubt is unassailable. That an honest and healthy sense of certainty is contingent upon this. That recognition of opportunity is the result our preparation and readiness to receive it. That we should seek the opportunity to develop a sense of certainty as the art of being sure, to maintain a sense of courage as the art of being strong and to practise compassion as the art of empathy, yet always and ever, at the 3 o'clock of our soul, conceding, with grace, the fact that we could of course be wrong.

muso wrote on Aug 8^th, 2010 at 11:11am:

Yes, although I think you'd owe Dante et al an apology.

Hollywood did not inspire Christianity's demonic mythology, merely tapped into it...

And if you really want to push it along, (in the context of demonic mythology) you could argue that the devil was in "the service of the lord" by punishing the doubter for his "egregious sin"... An idea many a theist could warm to.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Aug 8^th, 2010 at 11:29am:


Of course, Dante's Inferno was the precursor, and I suspect that Christianity picked up Hades from Greek Mythology too. It's nowhere to be found in the Torah, but neither is heaven for that matter. 

However I think that most Christians today pick up their iconography of Heaven and Hell from movies and TV series, having never read Dante's Inferno.

mozzaok wrote on Aug 8^th, 2010 at 9:03pm:

That's true, although John 20:24-29 is one passage that was commonly quoted and studied to highlight the "sin" of doubt and the fate of Thomas (that of being cast, for all time, as the bad boy of the 12 - after Judas - for having succumbed to the evil of demanding evidence) and the basis for the "doctrine" of doubt's religious venality.

freediver wrote on Nov 7^th, 2007 at 2:36pm:


Well obviously atheism is not science so it could be either witchcraft or a religion.

The best think to describe atheism is:
The a belief in God’s non-existence

Deists are probably as smart, if not smarter, than Atheists. Deism is just one of those belief systems that is suitably obscure enough that only highly dedicated and intelligent people would know about it, let alone espouse it.

The followers of blue-blood religions like Episcopalianism are smarter than Atheists by about 2/3rd of a standard deviation, I think.