Here's the real question to ask an unctuous pud who insists he or she is 'above it all' and merely looking out for the "advancement" of humanity (by which they really mean being "personally saved"):
Do you have a "hard on" for afterlife exclusion, segregation? Dividing humanity's dead into the permanently "saved" and "unsaved"? The former sitting at the "right hand" and watching on as we ("unsaved") unbelievers, along with Buddhists, Hindus, Jews get cremated for eternity? Is this important for your own spiritual satisfaction? Or, can it be dispensed with?
In other words, if you believe in "Heaven" and "Hell" your words are already hollow and show that - whatever your "hard-on" requires- it inevitably means more than five billion frying in a nuclear holocaust initiated in the Valley of Megiddo. It means > 100 billion crisping in fires for eternity as some snotty little "elect" self-righteous goombas enjoy sitting at the "right hand" of their little lord and master watching the infidels writhe and burn over and over. And then these miscreants will have the nerve to say: "Oh, but we hate the sin and love the sinner!"
Yeah ,right. Whether many want to admit it, or realize it or not, many Christians' entire life is bound into and promotes and defines their ultimate salvation. I have no problem with that, until they also posit I need their salvation lest I attain "damnation", based on my unbelief. (Never mind the exclusion may be from an unreal existence from my Atheist POV, the point is not the existence per se but the person's absolute mental exclusion in the first place!)
In other words, fine, if you want to believe you're "saved", but don't pillory or condemn me as "unsaved". Don't grab your "heaven" ticket, by handing me my "hell" ticket. (E.g. you're attaining the heavenly clouds, means I must descend to the hellish pits). I also totally question the premise that anyone can "behave with decency" in this world, if they also believe in their heart of hearts that a good portion of humanity will be condemned at the end of time - for either never having heard of Jesus, or not believing in him. (And lest Pastor Mike or his croney, Rene, read this and think 'Why worry if they don't exist to you?' - I don't. However, the mere fact that one could conceive even an imaginary torment for a fellow being makes one no better than the most visceral and depraved racist)
That makes a mockery of any decent acts they might do, and makes them hollow at core, since their governing belief is whatever people they help (or cooperate with in helping others) will ultimately be destroyed in some eternal holocaust. How does that reconcile? It doesn't - unless one is a madman. Are Christiano-Nazis madmen? There is good evidence they are.
There is enough evidence in now to show that the vast bulk of those who practice extreme religiosity and its expressions have brain dysfunctions centered in the temporal lobes as epiphenomena. Experiments by J.M. Persinger at Laurentian University have exposed these, by stimulating the temporal lobes of numerous subjects with specially designed helmets. In each case, religious visions or "insights" emerged, as well as beliefs. Eventually, Persinger had to call it quits after receiving death threats (according to a 1989 OMNI piece, 'Transcending Science'). For more of Persinger's complete work, get hold of his: 'The Neuro-psychology of God Belief'.
One would think people wouldn't get so lathered up at this. Beholding the sheer wonder of the brain as a 3 lb. mass of gray matter. Packed with over ten billion cells - able to deliver everything from the most advanced tensor equations of general relativity, to building space rockets...to majestic works of art.... to well, providing the most exquisite visions and beliefs on demand. (Read some of Telhard's writings, like The Divine Milieu, to see how his own temporal lobes excited his neocortex and conjured up his marvelous visions of the Alpha and Omega).
But people (devout religious believers) almost uniformly 'lose it', perhaps because - as Daniel Dennett once noted - they want to build their world and universe on "skyhooks" not cranes. Cranes, after all, have to hoist from the ground up. They're prosaic, dirty material-mechanical flotsam and jetsam like cells, electric signals and chemicals. But oh those skyhooks! To toss them upwards and hook on to the ethereal, immaterial realm in the hyper yonder beyond the clouds and matter!
"BWAAAAAA....We don't want that! We wanna be GRANDIOSE beings! Made of sky and spirit not filthy matter! "
They fail to comprehend that for humanity to be one in harmony - no single subset can elevate itself as "more special" or More worthy" or more "grandiose" than any other. Irrespective of who or what they believe. And while it might be nice or appealing to believe ALL humanity is skyhook-engendered, in practice it never works! Because once the skyhook meme is admitted, one segment yearns to claim its supreme grandiosity and specialness for itself, and exclude the others! Much better to look at basic evolution out of the mire by natural selection, and how we all came to have the same basic DNA in our cells. "Brothers in DNA".
How we all came to share the same basic chemical arrangement. Indeed, this sharing can be extended to all living things on the planet- removing the specialness of humans as a species.
Meanwhile, we must allow openness to criticism and exposure of religion - any religion - if for no other reason than what Persinger's experiments suggested: that most of it arises from micro-seizures in the temporal lobes, and those aberrant manifestations are therefore akin to those of a mental disease, including hallucinations.
And just as we look rational askance at the babblings and mouthings of a drunk in the throes of delirium tremens so we must do the same for anyone who talks or writes on religious behavior - in the effort to validate some aspect of it in a way that necessitates the material or other destruction and demolition of all other humans.
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