I belong to a group called Value Forum which has the purpose of providing a platform for members to exchange ideas about investing. The site also has a sub category called "The Coffee Shop" where members can go for exchanging ideas on everything not investment oriented. Humor, politics, religion...you name it. If there is not something that fits your paticular soap box, subscribers can make their own.

I recently discovered 'Religion'. No not as a belief system, as a topic. So of course I jumped right in. As usual, the hardcore believers started encouraging me to read my bible! It never seems to occur to these dimwits that I have read the Bible. That is why I am an unbeliever!

It occurred to me to post some of the exchange on this blog. Here it is. Welcome to the Value Forum "Coffee Shop."

vf-CMElec, a Christian fundamentalist, has encouraged me to read the Bible, helpfully pointing out verses that prove how badly I have been mislead by attempting to think for myself. By now “believers” like CMElec must have come to realize that arguing with me about religion is like mud wrestling with a hog. Doesn’t take long to realize the hog really, really enjoys it.

The problem with dogmatic belief systems is that when we are challenged, or asked embarrassing questions we haven’t thought of, it’s difficult to not see it as a personal attack. This is not a personal attack. Most Christians I know are hard working, honorable and respectable people.

The thing is, I have actually read the Bible. To say I failed to find it inspiring is a gross understatement. Robert Ingersoll had a great response when he was asked if the Bible was inspired. Here is his answer.

1. If it is, it should be a book that no man -- no number of men -- could produce.
2. It should contain the perfection of philosophy.
3. It should perfectly accord with every fact in nature.
4. There should be no mistakes in astronomy, geology, or as to any subject or science.
5. Its morality should be the highest, the purest.
6. Its laws and regulations for the control of conduct should be just, wise, perfect, and perfectly adapted to the accomplishment of the ends desired.
7. It should contain nothing calculated to make man cruel, revengeful, vindictive or infamous.
8. It should be filled with intelligence, justice, purity, honesty, mercy and the spirit of liberty.
9. It should be opposed to strife and war, to slavery and lust, to ignorance, credulity and superstition.
10. It should develop the brain and civilize the heart.
11. It should satisfy the heart and brain of the best and wisest.
12. It should be true.
The Bible fails every test. Every one.

Vf-cber11 who appears to share my views said, “I agree with you 100% but I'm wondering why you are pushing this.”
A fair question.

Here is my answer.

First, I would never be so arrogant as to suggest you have no right to practice your religion. You are free to “believe” whatever you want as long as you land your airplanes on airports and not in tall buildings and as long as you refrain from shooting abortion clinic doctors and teaching your “beliefs” to children as facts. And as long as you don’t beat them half to death trying to “expel” evil spirits as was done early last year, right here where I live. (When doctors in the emergency room were treating the young beating victim, they didn't discover any devils. They did find autism.)

Will Rogers reminded us that we are all ignorant, just about different things. That is why we cannot pass laws banning ignorance. (I would be the first to be incarcerated) You are free to be neurotic, psychotic and delusional. But I strongly oppose your right to spread your disease to children. How many Christians who poked their heads into a Madrassa religious school would say there is nothing wrong for Muslims to teach their young childen it is o.k. (in fact an obligation) to kill infidels? (In case you have been living in a cave since 9-11, an infidel is anybody who is not a Muslim) But this does not apply only to Muslims. You also have no more right to spread your infection to young minds than priests have the right to sodomize their bodies. “It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have it”. Robert Pirsig

The definition of delusion: “A persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence, especially as a symptom of a psychiatric condition.”

Gullibility and credulity are considered a mental handicap in every area of our lives.....except religion. Nothing makes an Imam, preacher or priest happier than when we surrender our reason.

Faith is something you use when you don’t have knowledge. Which is the stronger statement; The flight leaves at 7:00, or, I believe the flight leaves at 7:00? When you tack “I believe” onto a statement, it makes it weaker, not stronger.

When we board an airplane on the way to a hospital for open heart surgery, we require more than faith the wings are not going to fall off. We insist on evidence. Evidence is displayed in the form of a certificate of airworthiness in full view on the flight deck. We require more than faith that the pilot actually knows how to fly. This evidence is provided by a license and medical certificate which pilots are required to carry on their persons while piloting an aircraft. We require more than faith that the thoracic surgeon knows what he/she is doing. This evidence is provided by the surgeon’s certificate displayed on the wall of his/her office. Religion is the only facet of our lives where we are willing to accept propositions on faith rather than evidence.

If faith is valid, then anything goes. Highly educated Muslims who flew airplanes into the WTC had very strong faith so they must be right. 800 million Hindus have faith that Ram, one of their plethora of gods, built a 30 mile long land bridge connecting India and Sri Lanka. He did it by using the labor of an army of dedicated monkeys so that he could rescue his princess. Two people were killed in the rioting when just a proposal from the Indian government about dredging through the (now underwater) divine bridge, was revealed. Since Hindus have faith Ram and his monkeys built the bridge, they must be right. Mormons have strong faith that their founder, Joseph Smith dug up some golden plates and magic reading stones so they must be right. Using faith as a yardstick everybody is right!

Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” In other words, faith is the evidence of non-evidence. It’s a free lunch, a perpetual motion machine. It’s a way to get there without doing any work. Especially any mental work.

But what if you are wrong, Christians ask.

Pascal, the 17th century philosopher thought he had answered that question. He claimed the wise decision is to wager that God exists, since "If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing, meaning we can gain eternal life if God exists, but if not, we will be no worse off in death than if we had not believed.

One would think a great mathematician and philosopher like Pascal would have recognized his own self deception. Surely he would have known that an omniscient being could see right through it too. All Pascal was doing was hedging his bet. Hedging a bet is not the same as believing. In fact it is rank hypocrisy. If you express honest doubt, a wrathful god cannot accuse you of hypocrisy. Read about poor Uzza in 1 Chronicles 13 in the Christian bible. If you think your god came down hard on Uzza when he instinctively reached out to steady the toppling holy ark…”and he smote him, because he put his hand to the ark; and he died before God ”, you should be terrified to think what god has in store for you for the sin of being a rank hypocrite.

“If you lose, you lose nothing” is just not true. And here comes the answer to Vf-cber11 when he asked, “Why are you pushing this?”

We diminish this life by preferring the myth of the afterlife. We sacrifice honesty to the maintenance of a lie. Religion demands time, energy and money, draining valuable human resources from the improvement of this world. Imagine the benefit if young people who don’t have the resources needed to obtain a good education, had access to the 27 million spent on the creationist museum in Kentucky. Think of the good that could be accomplished if the Vatican had spent over two billion on secular universities and schools rather than defending pedophile priests. Think of the young people who could obtain a good education just from all the expensive paintings hanging on the walls and the huge collection of rare wines in the cellars, said to be worth in the tens of millions. After all, it was Jesus who said: “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor. (Matt 19:21)

Nor is it true that the unbeliever gains nothing. Rejecting religion can be a positive and liberating experience that allows you to gain perspective and freedom of inquiry. Freethinkers have always led the way in social and moral progress. They don’t waste money or resources on a supernatural world, providing an opportunity to make this world a better place.

Christians happily apply logic and critical thinking skills to other religions and curiously, lay them aside when it comes to their own. They cannot bring themselves to apply the same standard when considering their own claims. To refuse to do this is to refuse to use their brain. How do Christians prove that the ground opened up on the day of crucifixion and all those long dead saints came marching out? They cannot. They take it on faith. "and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." (Matt 27:52-53) Faith is the marijuana that leads to the crack cocaine of delusion.

Parenthetically, it seems to me the dead saint’s story would be a far greater miracle than Jesus’ resurrection. Preachers almost never mention this. If one is to teach young children fairy tales as god’s truth, why not place more emphasis on the greater miracle.

It is alleged that Jesus arose after only 3 days while the saints had been dead a long time. They actually came up out of the ground after their flesh had decomposed, leaving only bare bones. Then they strolled into town. (It must have terrified the children) Here again we are faced with one of two possible facts. Either the bible is true or it is not. If it is not, then there is nothing divine about it. It is just a fanciful tale, burnished with each re-writing over hundreds and hundreds of years. If we insist the Bible is true, then we have no choice but believe these unfalsifiable fairy tales. To me, bridge building monkeys are much more believable than talking snakes, talking donkeys and dead men walking. I saw monkeys do some incredible things at a variety show at the Follies Bergere in Las Vegas many years ago before the show was shut down by the Humane Association because of cruelty to animals. The point is, there is no evidence to back any biblical claims. Any claim made without evidence can be denied without evidence. I deny any of this actually happened.

Evolution has shown without a shadow of a doubt that there was no Adam and Eve. Let me repeat that. There was no Adam and Eve. Without Adam and Eve the whole foundation of the Christian and Muslim beliefs systems simply vanish.

Richard Dawkins nailed it. ‘Oh but of course the story of Adam and Eve was only ever symbolic, wasn’t it? Symbolic?! Jesus had himself tortured and executed for a symbolic sin by a non-existent individual. Nobody not brought up in the faith could reach any verdict other than barking mad!’