Dispelling Five Myths About Atheists

Christopher Hitchens, one of the foremost atheists (who died in 2011), had no patience for Xtian idiots who attempted to portray atheists in a false or distorted light.

As more and more of the younger generation engages in critical thinking to do with religions and migrates to the group known as "Nones" (no religious affiliation) , it is essential we skewer the myths to do with atheism.  To that end I provide the top five myths below and the reasons for saying so.

1. Atheists Deny God

This is perhaps the most popular myth, because on the surface it appears to make sense. Careful thought, however, might disclose how absurd it is. For example, one generally refrains from "denying" anything for which belief is withheld. Let’s take the example of alien colonies on the Chesapeake. Someone or group makes the claim, they exist, and are planning to siphon water to take to their planet.

Fair enough. I hear the claim, but in the next breath ignore it. It's of no concern to me because it is simply too preposterous to waste investing intellectual resources. The reason is that evidence-free claims can be regarded as false or spurious until such time a modicum of evidentiary basis is provided. If this is so, it follows there is even less reason to invest precious intellectual resources to deny the claim! Why the need?

Indeed, if one “denies” a specious claim, he’s already given it a plausible (if unconscious) underpinning. Any active expenditure of mental energy in denial presumes there is at least “smoke” (if not “fire”) to deny! On the other hand, if the claim is totally nonsensical, simple withholding of belief quite fits the bill and is more than adequate. As I noted in an article published in the Mensa Bulletin, March 1994:

"Let's be clear about what constitutes Atheism and what doesn't. The Atheist - to put it succinctly, absolutely withholds investing intellectual/emotional resources in any supernatural claim. Indeed the word Atheism itself embodies this definition: a-theos, or without god.”

What is happening here is not active disbelief, i.e. in making a statement “There is no god,” but rather simply passively withholding belief in a statement already made. Hence, the deity believer has made the positive claim. The ontological atheist’s is the simple absence of belief in it. No more and no less. It does not and never has implied aggressive rancor or a vehement and militant opposition to the beliefs. (Though yes, some militant atheists – or what we call “strong atheists” – do have such attitudes!)

Let me quickly add here that this withholding of belief is the more natural position, as opposed to advocating belief, which is unnatural. Consider a different context: a neighbor runs over and informs me that aliens have landed in his yard in a spacecraft. Until I actually go over and try to verify his claim I am under no obligation to accept it as a statement of fact. Thus, the default intellectual position is always skepticism, irrespective of the claim made. This again is because the onus is always on the claimant to make good, not the skeptic to “disprove” it.

2. Atheists reject morality

This is one of my favorites because it’s preposterous on its face. It’s also important because many otherwise sober people believe that atheists live by the rule “anything goes,” since we don't acknowledge any god. On many occasions in Barbados, I've been telephoned by religious types who ask: "If you don't believe in God what's stopping you from going out and raping, robbing, murdering or doing anything else? If you don't believe in God, then you don't believe in God's laws."

Invariably, I respond that decent, civilized behavior doesn’t depend on god belief or adhering to 'laws' of a god. Rather, it depends on rational and objective analysis of a situation, and sound decisions maximally promoting the welfare of all concerned.

As William Provine notes, people should be encouraged to think rationally and critically concerning ethics, not out of fear of some divine force, but to protect their own long-term self-interest[1].

In line with this, any persistent observer of human social interaction will note that the vast majority of people are law-abiding and decent folk who naturally practice a common-sense, utilitarian ethics similar to what has been described. No supernatural law or commandment ordains this behavior. Instead it is the conscious and deliberate recognition that the promotion of the welfare of others is directly linked to the one's own welfare. Compromise others' security, and you in effect compromise your own. Undermine their welfare and you also undermine your own. No god is necessary.

By contrast, religious morality is predicated on some formal codification of expected human behavior in terms of absolutist propositions, not subject to debate. The typical moral code of a religionist, whether Muslim, Pentecostal, Catholic or Jewish, isn’t subject to evolution or variation based on contingencies, or externalities. Thus, from this one beholds the Vatican still mandating its flock continue to reproduce - despite the planet being overpopulated. Now, under the name of their absolutist "natural law" they are pressuring exploding human populations to live in more and more desperate, unnatural conditions!

3. Atheism is a Religion

This claim is absurd on its face. The misplaced strategy, however, is always to attempt to place atheism within the same logical context as religion and then attack it on the basis of occupying an analogous “belief” spectrum. In the end, this is a fool’s errand.

For one thing it turns the very meaning and basis of religion on its head. We know all religions embody centralized beliefs or dogmas that issue from some sacred scripture or a body of theology based on scriptural interpretations.. Atheism has none of these, since there are no central propositions or beliefs with which all atheists agree.

First, atheists withhold belief, they do not invest it. This alone separates atheists from religionists or people of faith. Second, atheists make no positive claims for any transcendent existent that requires their worship or obeisance. They simply acknowledge no god or entity with which to build a religion in other words. Third, atheists maintain no sacred works, scriptures, or ancient artifacts, from which their “truths” are extracted.

They have no analog to a Bible, Qu’ran, Talmud or anything remotely similar. Instead, atheists pursue objective truth via open inquiry predicated on current science, which may provide fewer certainties or answers than if they merely placed their faith in a book. However, this doesn't mean they treat "science" as their god, because any hypothesis is always given falsification tests.

Fourth, atheists convene no regular rituals, services or ceremonies to honor, or propitiate any entity. By contrast, the centerpiece of 99 percent of religions is precisely some social ritual, for the purpose of assembling together like-minded believers toward a common goal. Moreover, their churches, synagogues, temples etc. dot the landscape, taking up room that could be used to house the homeless in each respective area or locale.

Perhaps most importantly, there is no "acceptance" of atheist principles from any “congregation” since there’s no homogeneous congregation to bestow it. Atheists often disagree on as many things as they agree on, precisely because no formal coda exists to fix beliefs within a uniform dogma. This means one is just as likely to encounter a wholly Materialist-Naturalist atheist as a non-material one.

4. Hitler was an Atheist.

This myth is intended to achieve exactly what it appears to do: slander atheism by association with the most monstrous human imaginable. If, therefore, Hitler can be painted as an “atheist” and if Hitler’s deeds were so cumulatively vile, it follows (in a bizarre sort of logic) that atheism can only produce vile deeds. However, technically Hitler was a Roman Catholic.   Historian Robert Payne notes [1]:

“Adolf Hitler's birth certificate records that he was born at six o'clock in the evening on April 20, 1889, and goes on to record that two days later, at a quarter past three in the afternoon, in the presence of Father Ignaz Probst, the boy was baptized in the local Catholic Church”

As is known from standard Roman Catholic doctrine, once one is baptized a Catholic, he or she technically remains a Catholic unless excommunicated, or until death. Payne later documents Catholic Church attendance by a number of Hitler's luminaries, including Gregor Strasser, Erich von Ludendorff and others (2).

While it is true that Hitler was probably no more than a nominal Catholic by the time of the invasion of Poland in 1939, this doesn’t mean he was an “atheist” any more than the two Columbine killers (who professed being “atheists”) as they threatened any peers that refused to budge from their faith during the 1999 Colorado killing spree. Obviously these killers merely postured unbelief, invoking the red-flag word “atheist”, as a vehicle for their anti-social acts or to garner more media attention.

5. Atheists Despise all religions

This simply isn't true. Atheists have great respect for those religions which are life-affirming, and which tolerate others rather than condemning them, or trying to employ spiritual apartheid or one-upmanship. In this way, Buddhism is perhaps the closest religion to atheism, especially as its goal of "Nirvana" is just nothingness, or what end the atheist also anticipates.

Elements of Christianity are also acceptable such as embodied in Science of Mind and Religious Science, and made popular in a number of books, e.g. Ernest Holmes Science of Mind. These sects have in common the unifying theme that evil is an illusion and each human can become a “Christ” unto himself (and indeed is an embodiment of divinity like Christ) and also that every material abundance becomes available once one acknowledges that he too, is God. 

Their import for the atheist is that they’re benign forms of Christianity that renounce the odious Heaven-Hell doctrine in favor of either cosmic unification or sequential, progressive reincarnation. They are also realistic in foursquare rejecting such latter day Fundamentalist inventions as "the rapture" - which, of course, denotes spiritual apartheid carried to an extreme. Thus, the righteous and "saved" get magically lifted up into their Lord's arms - while five billion Hindis, Buddhists, Muslims and non-saved Christians as well as all agnostics, infidels....get to be tormented by the "Anti-christ" (another fiction, but convenient to try to drumbeat the gullible and weak into the fold)

In addition, they embody esoteric forms that have much in common with Eastern religions such as Buddhism.  

Intelligent Americans, who also need to bone up on political ideologies (socialism, Marxism, fascism, capitalism etc.), need to also grasp what atheism is - and what it isn't.  This as opposed to knee-jerk assumptions and imbibing false information from non-atheists.



[1] William Provine, ‘Evolution and the Foundation of Ethics’ (MLB Science, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1988, p. 25)

[2] Robert Payne: 1973, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, Praeger Publishers, p. 15 

RC's McCarrick Scandal Will Provide Another Opening For Materialist Ethics To Trump Religious Absolutism

In the image above, we see the ardent religious absolutists at work - carrying out Holy Mother Church's "sacred" Inquisitional tortures -  on a putative "witch" (suspended  at far right, after being disembowelled), a heretic with a red hot iron applied to his pudenda, and a generic unbeliever about to have his tongue ripped out,  then his eyes.  The picture, from 'A History Of Torture Through The Ages',  shows what happens when people - believers-   are convinced they have absolute moral truth on their side.

This introduces the recent WSJ op-ed ('When The Cardinal Sins')  by William McGurn from yesterday (p. A15)  in which we are treated to 4 columns (truncated fortunately) of religious caterwauling on account of the pederasty of one Archbishop Theodore McCarrick being exposed.  As we know the pope demoted the filthy maggot, but now all the likes of McGurn can do is wring his mitts at how it will be another blight on the Church's moral credibility.  He writes, for example:

"Think of it as akin to the (Protestant) Reformation, except here it will not be Protestant Christianity but some materialist orthodoxy that will likely move in after the Church takes this latest hit."

I have news for McGurn: that materialist orthodoxy has already "moved in". It was well on its way long before McCarrick's crimes, flaring after the first priest sex abuse crimes made headlines. Once repeated transgressions were made known, as well as how John Paul II and Benedict XVI played roles in concealing the deeds of many priestly pedophiles - and enabling their easy movement from parish to parish- while diverting calls for accountability- it was all over but the dirges.  Anyone with more than air between the airs knew the RC Church had lost whatever remaining vestige of moral authority it possessed.

But you wouldn't know that from reading McGurn's twaddle, e.g.:

"In our day the battle is no longer between competing versions of Christianity.  It's not even  about God, though it's often characterized that way. The real fight has to do with who's right about the reality of the human person- those who posit him as a physical combination of matter and energy or those who believe him - as the Eighth Psalm put it, "a little lower than the angels"'

Himmm...how about a LOT lower than the angels, as in risen apes? E,.g.


See, any species that is capable of the violence unleashed in "ethnic cleansings", mass rape,  atomic bombings,  developing gas chambers for annihilating a whole race,  ripping infants from parents and caging them - is no angel, not even close to it. Hell, in the case of the latter behavior (as demonstrated by the Trumpite vermin) one could argue humans aren't even as decent as apes.   But this is the la-la land McGurn appears trapped in, so he can't fathom that fantasy train has already left the station, except for the odd cases of  "sin" preached about by "frustrated old men in robes".  (I suspect "robed fossils"  is more apropos.)

He also whines that the Church's teachings, like about sex and such - e.g.. masturbation, use of artificial contraception ("mutual masturbation" according to one ethics prof I once had)  are "incomprehensible to increasing numbers of people".

Well, why should they be comprehensible when sensible, intelligent people were told over and over again by the Church's prelates and popes that they had the moral answers and authority - but in the next breath were busy either raping children or hiding the rapists? Doesn't McGurn give the skeptics any credit for having brains at all? Evidently not!

At least scientific Materialism recognizes humans for what they are:  evolved apes with many ape characteristics, and behaviors. It doesn't glorify Man as some demigod or an angel in the works. At the same time this perspective enables us to dispense with the virus of moral absolutism.    Indeed, the archaic notion of "sin" can be seen in a new perspective.

Consider the Church's historic obsession with sins of the flesh that McGurn references, e.g. "Throughout history Christian teachings about the history and purposes of sex have often proved a hard sell.".    But if one steps back and examines Church history one can grasp why.  Thus, many of the Church sexual prohibitions date from Augustine's time.  Less known is that Augustine was originally a Manichean. The ancient Manicheans (founder Mani, b. 219 BCE) absolutely believed that the human was essentially a spark of deistic light locked within a body of flesh fashioned by 'Satan'. Of course, semen was the satanic fluid that kept the cycles of evil going.

Birth was the manifestation or culmination of the evil when the devilish flesh finally sprouted. Hence, enabling birth, was in effect tantamount to multiplying the total of diabolically imprisoned 'sparks' in the world. Since there was never any assurance these sparks could be liberated, it was paramount that the diabolical flesh be prevented from reproducing itself.

Interestingly, when Augustine converted to Christianity in 387 CE, the only Manichean tenet he ditched was the contraception. He retained all the other flesh/pleasure =demonic connotations and interjected them into his various teachings including his 'letters'. (For more on this, see the excellent monograph 'Eunuchs For the Kingdom of Heaven' by Ute Ranke-Heinemann, Doubleday, 1990). 

Augustine's Manichean teachings (after his conversion) held that any sexual pleasure whatsoever was "diabolical" in origin. However, it could be countenanced IF a baby was the end product. Otherwise, the offending parties were trafficking with demons. (He cites at one point, for "proof", the demon Asmodeus, who "slew seven men in 7 beds with seven women, but not when they were sitting at a table".)

 Augustine's harsh and sterile dogmas also probably spurred the Church Father Origen (of Adamantius) to cut off his own sexual organs - because he was unable to control them. Since each 'stimulus' enabled a particular demon to gain a foothold, it was better to get rid of them entirely.

Ramping up the ante much further are the essays in the book, 'In Defense of Sin', edited by John Portmann.  Thus, we find stirring contributions under the chapter headers: 'In Defense of Idolatry'( One), 'In Defense of Lying'(Six), 'In Defense of Adultery'(Five), and 'In Defense of Lust' (Twelve).

In regard to Augustine's up tight views on sexual sins, Portmann writes (p. 223):

"Missing from Augustine is the idea that lust completes us (however temporarily), fills us with a vivid sense of being alive, propels us along the way to self-fulfillment...Lust like the playfulness of children or the treasures of the Louvre, lights up a rainy day."

The author also makes a good case for enhancing creativity before listing (including with reasons) all those things we think qualify as "sex" but which really aren't, including: Phone sex(lack of touching so can't be sex), ogling porno photos or videos (voyeurism, but not sex, doesn't make the touching or intimacy cut), oh and flirting is not sex.

He also (rightly) rips into masturbation as sinful (p. 229) since it is based on a phantasm engineered by the early Church Fathers: to wit,  that each sperm was a "homunculus" or "little man" - hence each and every sperm had to be protected. Extended the same rights as the big man in whom it lived, else akin to mass murder on a miniature scale. Thus, spilling it was a no-no (often confused with Onanism ....which was actually a different category of "sin" since it was an offense against the Hebrew law of succession. In this, the nearest male relative of the deceased husband is obligated to fertilize the wife. If he refused, and spilled his seed, he was guilty of onanism. This is different from the early Catholic view that each seedling is a little man with life of his own. (This position didn't change until after better optical resolution in microscopes was achieved and individual sperm could be as similar to single celled flagellate creatures.)

Once the actual sperm could be observed in high powered microscopes, as well as photographed, the Church's antiquated position was dispelled, and there was no more reason to oppose masturbation other than on an irrational basis. (Thus, the Church had to come up with its absurd "natural law" doctrine, which holds no weight - given it was also invoked to defend slavery.)

A  common misconception, repeated as a subtext in McGurn's piece, is that Materialists have no ethical standards to offer. That we are fans of "survival of the fittest" thinking and "do as you please".  Nothing could be further from fact. The reason is that precisely because the Materialist invests in no 'hereafter' or supernatural realm, he values the material world in all its attributes and dimensions.

Not surprisingly, the Materialist is much more likely than the supernaturalist to place a premium on revering the Earth and demanding the rational disposition of its resources. As a Materialist, after all, I can examine the evidence and determine that our planet is possibly the only inhabited one, at least in our galaxy. I can also ascertain that this life is most likely the only one and that I must strive to enhance it in any way possible. I should emphatically not squander what I have now, while awaiting a mythical afterlife.

As a Materialist I refrain from looking to any hypothesized deity for deliverance, or lay blame for human ills on some mythical demonic entity. On the contrary, Man alone is responsible for his actions and is the ultimate master of his fate. As a Materialist I maintain that Man need not suffer extinction as a species if he has the courage and vision to assume control of his destiny through the use of reason.

It isn’t necessary to wave a bible or the ten commandments at a Materialist, nor quote the "golden rule". The true Materialist, by definition, respects his fellow men and reveres all life, since he recognizes (through his philosophy) that they share a planet that may be unique in the cosmos. Thus, the true Materialist treasures and conserves the Earth's finite store of resources, since he comprehends that Earth also has one life to live - and there is no more after the existing resources are consumed.

With these things in mind, the true Materialist does not give his offspring any and every thing that grabs attention. He certainly does not wish to encourage the sort of wanton greed and over-consumption that has brought our world to its present sorry state. The Materialist knows well enough that the planet can ill-afford more such uncaring people.

Embodied within the above examples are a practical ethics, which have been forged out of the Materialist's reason and his priorities. This has one overriding aim: to cherish the Earth and all life upon it. Consequently, the true Materialist disdains all forms of violence, since ultimately these are inimical to the community and to species' survival. Since violent acts undermine a community's cohesion and threaten its very existence, the true Materialist must regard them as irrational. The Materialist is compelled to co-operate with his fellows and promote a common good, not out of fear for the wrath of a deity, but to held insure a thriving, harmonious community with high survival value.

As William Provine noted in his article Evolution and the Foundation of Ethics [1], young people should be encouraged to think rationally and critically concerning ethics, not out of fear of some divine force's wrath, but to protect their own long-term self-interest.

If a person asked me for a specific ethical code that Materialists can follow, I could do no better than to cite : "moral provisionalism" or what I would call: "ethical incrementalism".  This ethical standard is superbly covered by author Michael Shermer in his monograph, The Science of Good and Evil. We are informed, for example (p. 168):

"Provisional ethics provides a reasonable middle ground between absolute and moral relative systems. Provisional moral principles are applicable to most people, for most circumstances, for most of the time - yet flexible enough to account for the wide diversity of human behavior"

As an example, let us recall how back in 2010, the Catholic Church  excommunicated  an American nun  in Arizona  for saving a 27 year old mother’s life at the expense of her fetus’. The physician nun's moral choice was either to let the birth occur and see both mother and infant die, or prevent the birth (because of the mother’s blood pressure complications) and save the mother.  Meanwhile, absolutist ethics would have argued that an effort to save both ought to have been made, despite the fact that medically both would have died.

In yet another example of the triumph of Materialist provisional ethics over RC Church absolutism, Brittany Maynard chose to end her suffering from brain cancer 4 years ago.  The Vatican's pseudo-moralistic fossils wasted no time in yelping from their high horse, condemning her decision as "reprehensible" .  Evidently, the Vatican's relics would rather she had been reduced to a drooling vegetable, with no bowel or bladder control, and not even cognizant of those around her. But this is typical of the Vatican's scornful approach to morality, and also McGurn's endorsement of it.

To the Materialist moral provisionalist what is reprehensible is allowing a sentient being to descend into a totally vegetative state lacking any life quality - with excruciating pain to go with it. Hence, Brittany's choice to end her life was a greater good over merely existing in a debased vegetative condition,  based on the specious presumption of "sanctity of life" demanded indiscriminately for any and all conditions.  Hence, the greater good here is ending the suffering and degradation of life quality rather than allowing it to progress to the stage one can make no authentic choice.

So what is McGurn's Catholic rejoinder to the advance of Materialist ethics? He scribbles near the end - in the wake of the McCarrick travesty:

"The Church certainly has the sacramental tools for healing and forgiveness."

Hmmm....then why haven't they yet been successful in halting the predations of many current padres on their young charges?   And this followup classic:

"The classic rejoinder is that we are all sinners and the Catholic Church will survive the McCarrick scandal as it has survived so many scandals over its 2000 years."

Brave words for a Church, a religion, on the ropes.

Will the Catholic Church go on? I have no doubt at all. Will it gain more converts? Sure, mainly of the poor, the ignorant and dispossessed in the more backward nations of the planet, as well as immigrants. However, its days as the moral arbiter and voice for the advanced nations in Europe, North America and Australia are forever gone. Those nations are becoming ever more secular, and even in the U.S. now the "Nones"  (no religion professed) are increasing at a rate faster than new Catholics.  Meanwhile, in the most advanced secular nations the Vatican’s voice has been reduced to barely above a raspy whisper.

The Roman Catholic Church will persist but also become a literal shell and shadow of its former self, paving the way for Materialist ethics (or secular humanist ethics) to make major inroads for millions to adopt a saner alternative.

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/05/moral-absolutism-is-trumped-by-moral.html

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/06/nun-articulates-sexual-ethics-for.html

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[1] MBL Science, Vol. 3, No. 1, p. 25, 1988

Why Do Some Brains Tilt Toward Atheism?

According to a 2008 Pew Religious Survey only 12.7 percent of those who grew up in religious homes later shuck off their faith and become "nones" or those who hold to no religion. (Also incorrectly called "unchurched")  It turns out the skeptical brain has a lot to do with it, as well as why many nones are atheists.

Conversely, other brains seem to have a biological tendency to gravitate to religion and a wide spectrum of spiritual beliefs. In the popular book “The God Gene,” American geneticist Dean Hamer said that “we have a genetic predisposition for spiritual belief that is expressed in response to, and shaped by, personal experience and the cultural environment.”

Belief - according to many - has been a positive development for the evolution of our species, and we haven’t evolved beyond it. According to a May Gallup poll, 86 percent of Americans believe in God. But with such a majority the question now becomes: Why doesn’t everyone believe in God? What's with the 14 percent who don't believe in God?

Many researchers have asked this same question. Some studies suggest that a skeptical brain works differently than a believing brain.  One example is a 2012 study titled “Is it Just a Brick Wall or a Sign From the Universe: An fMRI Study of Supernatural Believers and Skeptics.” In this experiment, the participants’ brain activity was monitored while they read a scenario, then looked at a picture. They were asked what thoughts the image would evoke if they were in that scenario, then saw that picture on a poster as they were walking down the street.

For example, imagine you just had a job interview. You walk down the street, and see a poster of a business suit. How would that make you feel? What does that poster mean? The supernaturally inclined people were more likely to see it as a meaningful omen, a sign that they would get the job. The skeptics in the group did not see any significance in the image. To them, a poster of a suit is just that, a poster of a suit. No other meaning applies.

Why this non-response for skeptics? The researchers found that one region of their brains (the right inferior frontal gyrus) “was activated more strongly than in supernatural believers.” The more active that part of the brain, the less likely participants were to find supernatural meaning in the images. The researchers think this is because the active region of the brain is associated with cognitive inhibition.

Cognitive inhibition marks the brain’s ability to stop or override a certain mental process — the ability to stop unwanted thoughts, say, or to weed out irrelevant information. One example of where cognitive inhibition is useful is in overcoming prejudice. If people want to avoid discriminating, they need to inhibit or suppress any negative stereotypes they might have toward a certain group of people - say thinking of or referring to black people as "apes".

Recent research has enabled remarkable insights into brains and what drives some toward religious belief, even mania, while others are 'turned off'. The research discloses the latter condition isn't the result of 'demons' or "Satan" afflicting the person, but rather particular brain chemicals, dynamics that differ in their manifestation between religious and non-religious.

Also of particular interest in neurophysiological and neuropharmacological research is the brain region known as the OAA or the Orientation and Activation Area.  In his book, The Spiritual Brain: Science and Religious Experience,, neuroscientist Andrew Newberg provides a putative basis for the divergence in religious acceptance, belief by showing how the brain’s orientation association area(OAA) determines the belief system for each of us.

Since each human brain is different, and the OAA varies in cognitive function from brain to brain, then the beliefs we choose will reflect that biological brain disposition.. An atheist, for example, will manifest a very high reductive cognitive function, in addition to very low dopamine levels, according to Newberg. A Fundamentalist will typically display a very high causality cognitive function, overlaid by primitive fears issuing from the amygdala.  The hyper-religionist who believes s/he talks to God or actually knows the deity on an intimate basis exhibits fronto-temporal dementia, as first demonstrated by Dr. Patricia Bannister in Barbados decades ago.

She found that patients at the Jenkins Mental Institution in Black Rock, St. Michael. exhibited hyper-religious behavior, calling out "God" every waking hour and preaching non-stop to whoever might listen. All had to be put on largactyl to calm their feverish,  god-obsessed brains and this was interspersed with ECT. One could be assured, on the basis of her work, that this hyper faction of religious believer comprised a very small fraction, perhaps not even 0.5% of humanity.

Moving on, let's bear in mind that the object of attraction for all religious believers is not something actually known by them, but rather an artifact of their minds - constructed by their previous exposure to religious programming, their personal experiences, and the level of dopamine affecting their brain dynamics and especially the OAA.  We call this subjective approximation, which is in fact a regulative ideal, a "God concept".  Thus, as when a D. Post letter writer (Mary Carter) asserted "everyone thinks they know better than a higher power", she's oblivious to the fact  that she in fact created that "higher power" in her cranium. It's a pure presumption on her part that she hasn't supported by evidence.

We know that because all brains are limited in neural capacity, all God concepts (including "higher powers")  must likewise be limited, as well as relative to each other. Hence, no one can be claimed as 'true' to the exclusion of all others.  One can call this the first principle of religious belief: what people profess belief in is not an actual entity they know, but rather their own brain-confected God concept. So why should we accept or believe in one merely because someone says so?

The biggest factor in parents being able to successfully pass on their religion to their children was their relationship with their children. The authors found that “parents who interact with their children during their formative years in a warm, affirming and respectful manner are more likely to pass on their religious tradition, beliefs, and practices.” Other things that aid successful transmission include having parents of the same faith who do not divorce and having a strong relationship with grandparents of the same faith.

On the other hand, religious conflict between parents and children has been cited  one of the most common routes from religion to atheism. If resistant children were forced into religious activities, they often rebelled as soon as they had the chance. This is exactly what happened to me. Forced into going to church - Catholic Mass - even when I despised it, and  forced to choose between being a Mass server (with my three brothers) or working in our 1/3 acre Fla. backyard pulling weeds.

As soon as I left home, and arrived at Loyola University, I dropped the church shtick and went my own way.  No longer religiously bound,  I'd begun a journey that would lead to becoming one of the earliest outspoken atheists - both in the West Indies and in the U.S. At Loyola,  after attending a guest lecture by Jean -Paul Sartre (in Jan. 1965)  on existentialism, I moved rapidly toward that future  atheism.

Conversely, a child with weak cognitive inhibition and a positive relationship with his married parents of the same faith is likely to carry on in the religious family tradition. A child with strong cognitive inhibition who is forced to go to church against his will is likely to rebel.

Those parents concerned with sons or daughters following in their religious footsteps might do well to bear all this in mind when raising their offspring- assuming the latter's  brains are also predisposed to belief. I don't think mine ever was.

Why Do Presidents Promote 'National Prayer Days'?

Obama - maybe praying for expeditious  passage of fast-track TPP.

The news that NONES - those without any religious affiliation - now make up 23 percent of the American populace (2nd only to evangelicals) ought to get everyone and especially our poltroon politicians to sit up and take notice. But likely as not they won't and they'll keep on peddling their bullshit including the 'National Day of Prayer" and other baloney.

One salon.com writer (Jeffrey Tayler) has recently exposed Obama's role in this pandering by observing:

"What concerns me now is what President Obama has just wrought to insult that most aggrieved (yet steadfastly growing) American minority, the advocates of reason, those who insist on evidence before accepting the truth of a given proposition, especially grand propositions about the origins of the universe and our species.  On Wednesday, President Obama marked the deeply pathetic traditional outrage to rationalism that is the National Day of Prayer (since 1988 the first Thursday of May) with a proclamation bearing the stark, yet somehow comically august, title “A PROCLAMATION.”  Ecumenically irrationalist, he urges us to pause and immerse ourselves in incantations addressed to a magical celestial despot, be He Judaic, Christian or, presumably, even Muslim, and thank Him for the fruits of our labor and for fortuitous events that have proved conducive to our contentment."

Tayler, not to be deterred, goes on, after referencing  "verbiage that sounds mostly like boilerplate pol-speak and preacher-talk":

"After a bland preface, Obama reminds us that we Americans “cherish” religious liberty at home, and exhorts us to “recommit to standing up for religious freedom around the world.”

But there is a contradiction inherent in Obama’s act of “proclaiming” from the White House on National Day of Prayer; namely, that such a day should not exist, but since it does, the president should not avail himself of it to militate for the cause of faith.  In 1952, in the depths of the Cold War confrontation with the atheist Soviet Union, Congress birthed the noisome basilisk of a law establishing the NDOP, which the Freedom From Religion Foundation valiantly (but unsuccessfully, of course) challenged in 2008 on (obvious) First Amendment grounds. 

 Fresh challenges should be mounted until the NDOP goes the way of Jim Crow.  To do my part in the fight for true secularism, I hereby contest the constitutionality of Obama’s issuance of Lord-positive declarations from his podium as the chief officer of our officially godless republic, if only because such declarations menace the mental health and intellectual development of children.  After all, in 1962 the Supreme Court decided against allowing prayer in public schools, so how is it that the president can use his office as a platform to call on us to beseech the “Almighty”? "

 Children might be exposed to such corrupting speech and suffer the same retardation religion has historically inflicted on science and education.  If nothing else, the White House Web page displaying the Proclamation should carry the warning “CONTAINS RELIGIOUS SPEECH — NOT SUITABLE FOR MINORS.”

Terrific take down and well justified! We need LESS religious and superstitious bollocks in our political space and not more.  In a post five years ago I noted the efforts of the Madison, Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation. to get rid of the "National Day of Prayer" malarkey. Recall the group had sued the Bush and then the Obama administrations in an effort to block presidents from making their annual proclamations inviting Americans to "set aside a day for prayer or meditation". (Who do these presidents think they are, Mullahs, or maybe Ayatollahs? We don’t need any proclamations! If people want to pray some entity emanating from their own temporal lobes, fine – but don’t make a national deal out of it!)

At the time Anne Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the foundation and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, heralded one federal judge's (Crabb's)  decision as courageous, and further observed:

“It's an invasion of the freedom of conscience of Americans to have their president direct their prayer or tell them to pray".

Again, so true. What the hell are Americans? Toddlers who need nurse maids in the guise of Presidents to try to keep them in line? Indeed, the very efforts each year tell me the politicos of every stripe are trying to use religion as a quasi-Neoliberal force to keep Americans in check. The more prayer declarations, I guess, the less the chance Americans will go bonkers and riot because of the increasing inequality, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/04/piketty-capital-soaring-stock-markets.html


This is what we expect the Mullahs in Afghanistan or Iran to do. Crabb’s decision still  stands as exceptional and courageous since most judicial districts and judges in any capacity remain cowed by the religious zealots and their political well-wishers who still hold this country in their feverish, frenetic grip. Indeed, Jordan Sekulow of The American Center for Law and Justice (which filed an amicus brief at the time on behalf of 31 members of Congress), said he was "confident the decision would be overturned on appeal." (It was.)

"This is one district court judge," bellowed Sekulow, an attorney with the public interest law firm founded by evangelist Pat Robertson. "It's not like it's happening all over the country. In no way do we think this is the mainstream of judicial thinking in the United States."


He may well be correct. But the “consensus” or unified position of  all other federal or state justices – or even the Supreme Court- doesn’t make their appeals decision right or in concert with the Constitution. Very often, it is the voice crying in the judicial wilderness – like Judge Crabb’s – which embodies the true perception and ruling. Crabb warranted praise for having the mettle and spine to come out with her decision in a god-besotted nation where even presidents jump on the god bandwagon to score cheap political points. (And again, to distract the hoi polloi from their Neoliberal agendas, like the TPP - which will take even more jobs away. Here's a radical thought, Mr. Prez, how about less prayer mongering and more efforts to prevent future job loss - such as form NAFTA on steroids?)

But let's be honest, few presidents possess the backbone to reject the tide or refuse to play the game. Even presidents who are detested in all other aspects of the national tapestry – from politics to economic policies. Obama is hated as a “socialist” or Hitler clone by much of the country, but this will not stop him from playing the god card. Indeed, he may be convinced doing so confers an added layer of protection – though most of those in nut country (as JFK once put it) don’t accept he’s a real Christian any more than a legitimate citizen. (It's that middle name, "Hussein",  that betrays him!)


Do I have some overarching objection to prayer? No, not at all, even though it's a totally vacuous, empty activity more to the benefit of the pray-ER than its object of worship, or extended purposes. (The claim that prayers helped sick people in hospitals was proven to be fraudulent some years ago, after the papers were subjected to further statistical tests and analysis. In particular, the thresholds for confidence in the z-tests and t-tests were way too open-ended and the sample sizes either too small or too infected with selection bias).

The majority of "nones" and I simply say let people pray on their own, in private, and for their own benefit if they must- or feel a need to. We don't need the odious spectacle of presidents grandstanding on their special perches or platforms (in public places that are supposed to be free of religious influence). Thereby squandering time and capital on vacuous appeals for a national entreaty to the supernatural.  Obama, funny enough, is often compared to the character "Spock" from Star Trek, but this is something Spock would never do. In fact, Spock often poked fun at the crew's superstitious habits which happened when they were in trouble.

Is Obama really trying to use this prayer spiel to deflect attention from his odious, legacy-wrecking stance on the TPP? We don't know but the signs are not auspicious, especially when he tears into truly liberal Dems like Elizabeth Warren!

See also:

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/18/barack_obamas_shocking_tpp_paradox_why_the_gargantuan_trade_deal_undermines_everything_he_says_he_cares_about/

The Younger Demographic Abandons Religion - It's About Time!

As I've noted in earlier blog posts, religion is distinct from the belief in a transcendent Being. While the endless search for the latter is likely rooted in the brain, i.e. the brain’s orientation and association area(OAA) ,  see e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/01/peeling-back-layers-of-religious-brain.html

religions are cultural-social creations, arising from particular ethnicities and geography.

That is, while the brain and OAA engender the God-concepts which we embrace, these concepts are not dependent on having a religion.


Religion - by contrast- is an entirely human artifact generally contrived for the purpose of control of a population via mind viruses.  Religion has been described as a "reaction to the experience of the transcendent" - and this may carry more truth than all the religious books one could ever read in a lifetime. It means that at some phase religion short circuits itself by inveighing against the natural instinct for spiritual self-discovery in most humans. It means that religion's warp and woof is to filter out the transcendent so its power implications are dispersed into assorted secondary human channels or  "media" (e.g. priests, popes, rabbis, ministers etc.)  as opposed to being allocated to the individual to exercise on his own. (Which would allow him to become too much like the ancient Gnostics).

Thus, religion FEARS too much self-autonomy, independent thought and questioning which is why it often retains an absolutist stance regarding the nature of the transcendent- and has historically held out assorted punishments when it beholds any transgressions of concept, or "belief", i.e. for heretics:















Heretics undergo torture at the hands of the Inquisition, for their rejection of basic Catholic tenets.

The mind virus basis for most religions (except the impersonal) was first articulated by biochemist Jacque Monod in his book Chance and Necessity. On page 155 Monod observes:

"The human group upon which a given idea confers greater cohesiveness, greater ambition and greater self-confidence thereby receives from it an added power to expand which will ensure the promotion of the idea itself. Its promotion value' bears no relation to the amount of objective truth the idea may contain."

He goes on to note (ibid.):

"The might of the powerful armament provided by a religious ideology for a society does not lie in its structure, but in the fact that if this structure is accepted, that it gains command".

And indeed, we already detect this playing out on the national stage as a group of powerful religious interests, as embodied in 'Hobby Lobby' - seeks to have certain contraceptive provisions in the ACA overturned by the Supreme Court so that they do not have to comply. As Justice Elaine Kagan noted in one of her ripostes, "What next? Will another religion choose to reject vaccinations? Another choose to reject sex education? Where does it end?"

But this is the point given that the most powerful and insidious memes- mind viruses are those dedicated to the spread of religious beliefs.  The most pervasive as well as pernicious are those that hijack political or social power  using what Monod, for example, calls their innate "infectious power", or how easily they are spread.  (One reason one must always be wary of proselytizers in any form! They all clearly seek to enhance the "propagation value" of the virus)

All of this is why it's so gratifying to now learn that of those aged 18 to 35, three in 10 say they are not affiliated with any religion, while only half are “absolutely certain” a god exists. These are at or near the highest levels of religious disaffiliation recorded for any generation in the 25 years the Pew Research Center has been polling on these topics.

In fact, the numbers could be even more favorable, and they might be closer to 4 in 10 unaffiliated with a religion. Why? A clue is provided by columnist Tina Dupuy, who  observes. “When it comes to self-reporting religious devotion Americans cannot be trusted. We under-estimate our calories, over-state our height, under-report our weight and when it comes to piety—we lie like a prayer rug.”

So 'Muricans are too chicken shit to divulge their real leanings and predilections in many polls- namely those bearing ultra-sensitive topics like weight, religious belief etc.. So what's new?

Anyway, even more satisfying is that e very piece of social data suggests that those who favor faith and superstition over fact-based evidence will become the minority in this country by or before the end of this century. In fact, the number of Americans who do not believe in a deity doubled in the last decade of the previous century according to both the census of 2004 and the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) of 2008, with religious non-belief in the U.S. rising from 8.2 percent in 1990 to 14.2 percent in 2001. In 2013, that number is now above 16 percent.

If current trends continue, the crossing point, whereby atheists, agnostics, and “nones” equals the number of Christians in this country, will be in the year 2062. All of which is terrific, except that I will likely not be around to see it.

How did this turnaround from specious religious faith happen? Perhaps many reasons, including the emergence of the "New" atheists prepared to take on religionist bullies where and when they see fit - as opposed to cowering. And also the overreach of the religious politicos - as in the 2012 election with assorted nitwits talking about "legitimate rape" and other nonsense.

But it likely began even earlier. Political scientists Robert Putman and David Campbell, the authors of American Grace, argue that the Christian Right’s politicization of faith in the 1990s turned younger, socially liberal Christians away from churches, even as conservatives became more zealous. “While the Republican base has become ever more committed to mixing religion and politics, the rest of the country has been moving in the opposite direction.”

Nowhere is this being played out more than in the arena of abortion and contraception, and one can see again how the religious will likely overplay they their hand with this new round at the Supreme Court. Whichever way the Court rules, the non-affiliated demographic is likely to grow and that is a good and healthy thing for this nation!

Evangelicals Want to ‘Double Down’ on Bible Thumping? Fine- But It Won’t Make ANY Difference!

According to a report in TIME (‘Preach Like Your Faith Depends On It’, Mar. 25, p.46) Evangelicals of all stripes are wetting their panties and crying because statistics show young people especially are becoming “NONES”. According to stats cited in the article “15 to 20% of all Americans in the past five years have ceased to claim any religious affiliation”. This is especially among the young, i.e. Millennials, the group the fundies would most like to drumbeat into their brainwashed fold. The trend has become so significant that Pew researchers have described it as “the rise of the Nones”.


Instead of figuring out that people are becoming much more informed, and now able to see through biblical bollocks and the bluster of fake pastors, these numskulls intend to “double down” on their preaching, believing they just haven’t been intense enough! Are they on crack as well as stupid? According to the TIME article:

“Rather than softening the Gospel message to make it more marketable to an America skeptical of institutions – a frequent reform point of view- what draws the real energy among the faithful is a commitment to what Christians call  ‘the Great Commission’ the words the resurrected Jesus spoke to his apostles at the end of Matthew: ‘Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’”

Well, hate to break it these hyper-dedicated  faithers, but they could as well save their breath: Jesus never spoke any such words (they were inserted into his "mouth" by a forger) and no one named ‘Matthew’ had anything to do with them either!


This has been confirmed by research by Bart Ehrman, published in his latest book: ’FORGED: Why the Bible’s Authors  Are Not Who We Think They Are.’


For example (cf. p. 256) all the words alleged to have been spoken by Christ during the crucifixion or after (i.e. resurrection) were later insertions by forgers. According to Ehrman (ibid.) while the accounts purport to be faithful representations written only 7 years after the crucifixion, in fact none of the quadriforms (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) were written until 40 to 60 years after his death. Ehrman adds:

“Moreover, these books were not known as a book of writings until the second century.”

More to the point, Ehrman goes on to note we have absolutely NO Roman records of any kind “that attest to the existence of Jesus Christ”. Indeed, if a trial actually occurred, as the Gospel authors claim, one would have thought at least a passing reference would appear in public records. But there are none, zero, nada. No public accounts, no references to any trial, no descriptions of his death….”not even a birth certificate”. Ehrman adds that “not even is Jesus mentioned in any historical source of the 1st century”.


Ehrman is careful to note this doesn’t mean Jesus never existed, only that there are no formal public records of his existence. But it is this very absence of public documentation that makes forgery easy, because there can be no cross checks or independent confirmations. Hence, there's no way to validate words or actions attributed to the putative God-man at the time his would have historically existed. Christ being claimed to have said: "Go and teach all nations etc." then has about as much ballast as me saying: "Go forth and find the extraterrestrials now taking over our leaders on Earth!"  It's bare bollocks!

Why would these forgers be so committed to lies, deceptions? Ehrman references the ancient belief in the “noble lie” – relating lies for a person’s own good (i.e. telling a patient that a horrific tasting herbal brew will be good for him, to cure some illness). In this case, the forgers clearly felt it was more important to lie to entice non-believers to accept the Christ God-man story than to tell the truth….that he was an exceptional but human rabbi and Cynic, blessed with powerful charisma who was probably executed for ‘crimes against the state’, as Oxford researcher Geza Vermes surmises.


I point this out to indicate that ‘doubling down’ on preaching long held myths about Christ is not the way to go. Thus, Albert J. Mohler’s warning in the TIME piece that:

“The evangelical movement in America is going to be forced back into the Book of Acts”

I suspect isn't too bright an idea. (I do give Mohler lots of credit for cojones given how his Xtian mandates were thrashed in the last general election!) Anyway, Mohler's quote is a reference to the 'world of Acts' which featured ferocious witnessers for Jaysus and missionary zeal in making converts. Of course, Mohler is clearly clueless that the Book of Acts itself is replete with forgery. Ehrman notes, for example (p. 206):

“Acts claims to be written by someone who was a companion of Paul, but given the numerous discrepancies between Paul’s letters and the book of Acts this seems unlikely.”

Ehrman then details how and why Acts is a clever forgery, in which again, the notion of going out and converting the Gentiles is trumpeted, though there is no bona fide basis for it. Consider also the letter of Paul to the Galatians. This encapsulates a problem of not only historicity, but of significant copyist errors (bastardized mss.) left to parse, as well as geography.

Even at the time of the original “letter” (assuming it was even penned by Paul), Galatia was not a single town with a single church, it was a region in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) in which Paul had established churches. When he writes to the “Galatians” therefore, is Paul writing to ONE single church or to all of them? (Presumably since he doesn’t single out any he intends his missive to go to all of them). If so, given the churches are far apart (on average 150 miles) does that mean he made multiple copies of the same letter – or did he intend one letter to circulate to all the churches of the region?


Suppose he made multiple copies, how did he do it given no printing presses were available and the precise copying of merely one letter would have taken over a year. In fact, the evidence of extant texts shows Paul dictated the letter to a scribe. (Paul’s initials, unusually large, diverge from the scale of script used in the actual letters).

Problem with the dictation: Did Paul actually dictate it word for word, or did he merely spell out general points and enjoin the scribe to fill in the rest?  Here’s what we do know: What survives today is not the original copy of the letter, nor one of the first copies that Paul himself made, nor any of the copies that were produced in the towns of Galatia to which the letter was sent – nor any of the copies of those copies.

The first reasonable copy we have of Galatians is a papyrus called P 46 – for the 46th New Testament papyrus to be catalogued, which dates to 200 CE (200 AD). This is roughly 150 years after Paul putatively wrote the letter. It was in circulation – copied sometimes correctly, sometimes not, for 15 decades BEFORE any copy was made that survived to the present day. Further, we cannot reconstruct the copy from which P 46 was made.

An even more outrageous case of forgery documented by Ehrman (pp.32-33) is the Letter of Timothy, actually forged by a 5th century Church leader named Salvian, based in Marseilles. The excuse this bozo used when caught out by superiors? If he wrote in his own name, no one would pay any attention, so he chose the name 'Timothy' - meaning "honored by God".  Laugh if you will, I suspect most cases of such biblical forgery were driven by the same reasons, plenty of good intentions to be sure, but not the words of the person(s) claimed.

The TIME article, interestingly, ends with a quote from G.K. Chesterton:


“the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”


But perhaps old G.K. never considered the REAL reason the exalted Christian ideal has "been found difficult"  is because touted biblical messages-passages  are rendered not merely difficult in themselves, but nonsensical if  interwoven in a patchwork of outright lies, forgeries. My take is that people would be more welcoming to Xtians as a whole and their message of fellowship if: 1) they admitted most of the Gospels are not historical documents but instead based on forgers’ propaganda, 2) Christians displayed their beliefs by actions toward others, done in a consistent way.


The second is especially apropos. I mean, think of it! Why in Hell’s Bells would I be inclined to pay attention to the blog preachings of some dumb, self-professed "saved'  Xtian  turd who claims to be following Christ, if this turd puts images of me in assorted  "Hell" graphics on his blog? Added to that, he tries to browbeat me with assorted verbal bullying, name-calling and visual (image) assaults and expects me to attend to his  "saving witnessing". To take him seriously? He's either nuts or a fucking moron.

I’d as soon spit on this turd, as listen to him or respect his beliefs! I'd do the same for Fred Phelps or any other self-professed "Christians"  who claim to be preaching an authentic "gospel" message when the most rudimentary intellect can see it's fraught with HATE. (Probably too, none of these imbeciles have ever heard of the old saw that "you catch more flies with sugar than vinegar")

Now, IF he instead went out and set up a table to feed homeless kids, or bought groceries for indigent seniors and helped prepare their meals, I’d be much more inclined to pay attention. If he even went out to pick up garbage, cans, McDonald's wrappers strewn on his highway - to demonstrate something to care for beyond himself with ACTIONS, I'd be more likely to take him seriously.  But not if he froths at the mouth, literally spits his words out at me with pure venom and expects me to be accepting!

Look, I am an unbeliever.  If you claim your faith system is superior to what I uphold (science)  then SHOW me! Not by your fucking words, but ACTIONS!  Not by your stupid, mucked up, forged bible verses but by how you act and show compassion to the world. If you can show me you can do something I have difficulty with, translating ideations to solid, charitable  and compassionate actions, I might decide first - that your system has something to commend it that mine lacks. And second, that you are capable of 'walking the walk' as opposed to merely talking Bible BS. Or....trying to threaten me with hellfires when you haven't even convinced me that I'd remotely wish to spend an eternity with your smug, self-righteous lot! DOH!!! (In other words, dummies, "salvation" is not a big priority on my to-do list if it means spending a nanosecond with religious psychos! Of course, since nothingness is the ultimate end of humans anyway, it's a moot point.)


Basically then the Christians are their own worst enemies in getting their message out far less getting it accepted. If they’d first attend to pruning the creeps and turds from their lot, i.e. those like the Fred Phelpses, Billy Sundays, Pastor Mikes, Pat Robertsons, Jim Joneses, et al – they’d have more success in getting the NONES or us non-believers, to give them respect...maybe even heed whatever scintilla of useful message they might have for us.

Doubling down on biblical bollocks then isn’t going to engage more people - but perhaps attending to truthfulness in their own scriptures will, as well as ACTING the part of the one they profess to follow – as opposed to acting like hateful pieces of ambulatory, diseased dogshit.