Rethinking Religon

A couple years ago my friend, Jim, sent me a copy of a small book he had written for the benefit of his congregation, challenging them to think about their beliefs and their faith. It appears his main concern was that the members were letting the church leaders think for them, rather than thinking for themselves.

He was kind enough to send me a copy of his work and I responded with comments of my own. I stumbled on to my correspondence with him and have reproduced it here.

Since I wrote this, I have softened my stance on religion somewhat. I now see that religion provides a platform for adherents to socialize and (in most cases) do good works. Socialization and group acceptance is very important to most people. Until other avenues are opened up for that important aspect of our society, religion will fill the void.

Hi Jim

My first impression is that you have done an excellent job in inviting your church group and others to reconsider their mode of thinking. I was particularly impressed by your invitation for readers to challenge anything in the paper they didn’t agree with. This is what scientists do when they claim some new discovery. And if another scientist points out an error, instead of being vilified, the questioning scientist is thanked for it. We seldom see this in religion. For example when Galileo discovered the earth went round the sun, (contrary to what the bible teaches) his reward was banishment to house arrest for the remainder of his life.

The problem with dogmatic belief systems is that when we are challenged, or we are asked embarrassing questions that we haven’t thought of, it’s difficult to not see it as a personal attack. That is why your job is so difficult. You have to tip toe through this theological jungle, otherwise you will be attacked…possibly even thrown out of your church. It was difficult for me when I discovered that people whose minds have been shackled with dogmatic belief systems are not particularly amenable to logic, reason and critical thinking. It must be doubly difficult for you. If there is a common theme that runs through the stories of those who have cast aside their dogmatic beliefs it is simply this; they were accepted into the church for what they believed and thrown out for what they knew.

Someone once said, “A wise mans’ questions contain half the answers”. Like a good lawyer who never asks a question unless he/she already knows the answer, you already know the answers to your questions. To you and to me the answers are glaringly obvious. By using the Socratic approach you are providing half the answers. In part 3 on page 29 you ask what I believe is the most important and critical question; “Which is more important, defending someone’s faith or defending the truth”? Edmund Way Teale who authored, “Circle of Seasons” must have had your question in mind when he wrote, “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”.

I think one reason we have such difficulty in debunking all the dogma we have been exposed to in the world is that our most important thoughts often contradict our emotions. As Mark Twain said, “We do no end of feeling and mistake it for thinking.” Once that little voice in our head convinces us we have found the truth, why waste anymore time on it? That is why dogma is so dangerous. Dogma is not the absence of thought; it is the end of thought. Skepticism, on the other hand allows us to separate ideas which are just plain ridiculous from those which have some merit. As a result of dogma, untold millions have died and are still dying every day because of this flawed system; a system which adopts the most outrageous and bizarre ideas without demanding one grain of proof. I will examine a few of these weird and wacky belief systems later.

The great thinker and patriot Thomas Paine (1737-1809) had this to say about revelation in his book, “The Age of Reason”.

“Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet, as if the way to God was not open to every man alike”.

Each of these churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the word of God. The Jews say their word of God was given by God to Moses, face to face; the Christians say that their word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say that their word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from Heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and for my own part I disbelieve them all.

As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I proceed further into the subject, offer some other observations on the word revelation. Revelation, when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man.

No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is a revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it.

It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication….after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it can not be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me and I have only his word that it was made to him.

Joseph Smith (1805-1844) who founded Mormonism was only 4 years old when Paine died. This semi-literate con man managed to have 33 wives before he was shot dead at age 39 in Carthage, IL. He claimed over 20 visits with the angel “Moroni” (one is tempted to drop the “i”) The “Book of Mormon” was “revealed” to Smith in a unique manner. (To be successful everybody’s gotta have a gimmick; kinda like Lamberts “hot throwed rolls”.) Smith claimed it was written in a book made of gold in a “lost” Egyptian language and was buried on a hillside near Manchester, NY. Smith claimed that his assigned angel, “Moroni” required him to obey certain procedures which had to be followed exactly prior to receiving the plates, rather like a modern day treasure hunt so delightful to children. However his repeated failure to follow Moronis’ explicit directions prevented him from actually taking possession of the book until four years later on September 22, 1827. (Evidently his learning curve was a bit shallow)

Of course Smith couldn’t read Egyptian (he could hardly read English) so the angel conveniently buried some magic reading stones (the story goes) along with the book. By looking through these stones the writing became crystal clear and BEHOLD!, it was the “Book of Mormon”.

One wonders why Moroni didn’t just slip the damned book, along with the magic reading stones, under his bed, thereby giving Mormonism a four year jumpstart. Be that as it may, you and I along with nearly 6.7 billion other folks on this planet know it’s all a bunch of b s. And the b.s. gets even deeper. Stealing a page from Moses in the Old Testament, (Exodus 19:12) Smith warned that if anyone else should sneak a peak through the magic stones, they would die instantly.

I will ask the same questions you asked on P. 4. Are these people stupid? No. Are they dishonest? No. Many of them are exceptionally smart. Take Mitt Romney for example. Or Harry Reid, the Senate leader, or Orrin Hatch the former Republican Senate leader.

They are however deluded. One who is deluded is delusional.

One of the problems I often run into in discussions with my Christian friends or relatives is that they try to squirm away from a well reasoned argument so that they can score an empty victory by redefining words. Jesus said some of his disciples would not taste death before he returned. “Oh, but you see a day is a thousand years; a god day is not the same as a human day”… This of course is nonsense. If words are to mean anything then ground rules need to be established beforehand. Otherwise it would be like playing a ballgame where there are no rules.

Dictionaries don’t have a dog in the fight concerning religion so in order to frame a coherent argument or a coherent rebuttal, a dictionary should be the final authority on what words really mean. With that in mind I will turn to a dictionary for a definition of four significant words essential to any discussion of religion: faith, knowledge, delude and delusion.

“Faith” is defined as, “belief in, devotion to, or trust in somebody or something, especially without logical proof.”

“Knowledge” is defined as, “general awareness or possession of information, facts, ideas, truths, or principles

“Delude” means, to persuade somebody to believe something that is untrue or unreal.

“Delusion” is defined as, 1. “A persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence, especially as a symptom of a psychiatric condition”. 2. “A false or mistaken belief or idea about something”.

Best selling author Sam Harris, describes faith as, “The willingness to await the evidence; the search for knowledge on the installment plan. Believe now, live an un-testable hypothesis until your dying day, and when you are dead you will discover you were right.

As you pointed out on page 42 with your example of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, knowledge, not faith, is a check we insist on cashing this side of the grave. The aeronautical engineer says the airplane will fly and we believe him/her. We don’t take it on faith. The electrical engineer tells us that when all the proper conditions are met the light will come on when we flip the light switch. The doctor tells us our appendix is about to rupture and we may not survive unless it is removed. In the real world, we must have defeasible (capable of being declared void) reasons for our claims. Only in the world of religion, inhabited by preachers, priests mullahs and rabbis are the rules of proof and reason suspended.

If we use faith (trust in something without proof) as good reason to believe then we need look no further than the 19 hijackers on 9-11. Most Americans were surprised to learn that these men were not uneducated ignoramuses. For the most part they were highly educated and well off financially. In one sense the only thing that separated them from us was their perfect faith. And they acted on their faith. Those faithful actions cost thousands of innocent lives and literally trillions of dollars to the world economy. All because, as children, they were taught that the angel Gabriel revealed the true word to their prophet Muhammad while he sat in a cave. Those 19 delusional men actually believed Muhammad mounted a winged horse and rode it round trip to heaven. And so do nearly 1.4 billion other delusional Muslims.

While we are on the subject of delusions, here is an interesting news item from BBC News. (Emphasis is mine)

BBC News Friday, 14 September 2007, 10:57 GMT

The Indian government has withdrawn a controversial report submitted in court earlier this week which questioned the existence of the Hindu god Ram. The report was withdrawn after huge protests by opposition parties. The report was presented to the Supreme Court on Wednesday in connection with a case against a proposed shipping canal project between India and Sri Lanka. Hindu hardliners say the project will destroy a bridge (now underwater) built by their god Ram, and his army of monkeys. In the last two days, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has launched a scathing attack on the government for questioning the "faith of the million".

Think about that for a moment. The Indian government actually caved in (at least temporarily) because of the delusional belief of 850 million Hindus who actually believe a bunch of monkeys built a bridge under the supervision of one of their many gods whose name is Ram

Somewhere around 850 million Hindus actually believe this ridiculous claim. Can there be any doubt that all 850 million Hindus who believe this ridiculous story are delusional, which again, is described as “A persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence, especially as a symptom of a psychiatric condition”.
(The article failed to mention that Chipmunks also had a hand in building the bridge. They would roll in the sand until their little furry bodies were full of it and then run onto the construction site and shake the sand out.) For Christians its hard to even speak of that absurd claim without sniggering. Hindus however consider it serious business. They were so enraged over the fact that the government would even consider damaging their sacred sunken bridge by dredging a canal right through the middle of it, that they blocked traffic and delayed trains in protest.

The problem skeptics like myself have with faith claims is that they cannot be proved wrong. They are not falsifiable. There is no way I or anyone else can disprove them. For example if I made the claim that a hand appeared over my keyboard and began typing every word on this page, there would be no way my claim could be disproved because there are no witnesses. And even if there were people who claimed to witness the event, how do we know they are telling the truth? The reason the world has degenerated into a population of over 5 ½ billion delusional believers is because gullible and credulous people have failed to demand proof and instead embraced these ridiculous claims through faith.

No one should be allowed to snatch a claim out of thin air and parade it around as gods’ truth. There must be some method of proof-testing if the claim is to be considered valid. If I make the claim that water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit at sea level with a standard barometric pressure of 29:92, then I must be willing to provide you a thermometer with which you can falsify my claim. A claim that is not falsifiable is an exceedingly weak claim. A claim that can be asserted without proof can be denied without proof. If Christians can reject the faith claims of Hindus concerning bridge building monkeys, Hindus can reject the claims of Christians concerning snakes and donkeys talking, dead men walking and crackers and grape juice being magically transformed into the body and blood of a long dead preacher.

If we allow people to make claims for which they can provide no proof, the first thing you know we will have Hindus disrupting traffic and commerce, Muslims flying airplanes into buildings and Christians burning heretics at the stake, hanging witches and murdering doctors who run abortion clinics.

In the past couple of years I have become friends with a remarkable gentleman who has been practicing psychiatry for over 31 years. He has written several books. He cares nothing for money but is wealthy. He practices no religion but is kind and wise. He has two sons who graduated from prestigious Universities with honors.

As usual when he visits, the conversation turns to philosophy and religion. He told me that religion is a delusion. He went on to say, “A delusion is an irrational belief which cannot be verified by independent means and which defies simple logic.” (Pretty close to what I found in the dictionary) “For example” he said, “if I tell you that the FBI and Mafia have been trying to kill me for the past five years, you cannot argue with me by reasoning or logic. You cannot convince me that the FBI or Mafia could have killed me a long time ago if this was true”. He said the main problem with delusional people is that their mind (thinking, feeling and action) is disconnected from their inner wisdom (reasoning, judgment, insight, etc.). He explained that some antipsychotic medications reconnect these two aspects of the mind. But religion is not amenable to such treatment. He told me that once a person becomes delusional, it’s nearly impossible to cure them of it. I didn’t want to believe him. Surely, I said, you can reason with them. No he said, “The best you can do is to acknowledge their belief without condemning it, and offering yourself as an example for them to emulate.

After I had a day or two to think about it, the gravity of what he said finally began to sink in. We live in a country where the electorate insists the President be delusional. If a non-believer, that is to say a non-delusional candidate ran for office, he/she wouldn’t stand a chance. It appears anyone running for President must declare some kind of religion. It doesn’t matter which kind. Just some kind. A candidate professing some kind of religion, no matter how bizarre, as in the case of Mormons would win hands down over a candidate, no matter how well qualified, that professed to having no religion. It’s not only o.k. but required for a candidate to believe that a little cracker and some wine is actually the body and blood of a long dead religious zealot. It’s not only o.k. but required to believe that this Jewish trouble maker has condemned over 5 billion of the earths’ inhabitants to an eternity of torture. To put it quite simply, it is not only o.k. but required that a candidate for the presidency of the United States profess to be delusional.

The planet will soon have 7 billion inhabitants, the large majority of which are delusional, and there is no cure

That thought should be enough to sober up anybody drunk with religious fervor. But it will not. Why? Because, as my friend said, there is no cure. Once these belief systems are inculcated in our brains at an early age we become trapped in an intellectual prison from which there is no escape. Those like me who would do them the favor of releasing them from their prison with reasoning and plain logic are rewarded with derision

Let’s consider the 67% of earths non-Christian population (over 4 ½ billion) who reject the notion that Jesus is their savior. What was that? Am I saying that 4 ½ billion of the planets 6.7 billion reject Jesus? Yes. That is exactly what I am saying. Anybody with access to a library or personal computer can verify this fact for themselves. 4 ½ billion of the earths 6.7 billion flat out reject Jesus. They place their faith in other things; that monkeys built bridges, that their prophet rode a horse with wings to heaven and back, that god provided a more recent prophet with his own personal assistant in the form of an angel who showed him where some golden plates were buried. A group living on an island in the South Pacific, has faith that a savior named John Frum will appear on the horizon any day now, leading a fleet of ships laden with free consumer goodies. If one attempts to shake their faith by pointing out that it has now been nearly 70 years since John Frum made the promise and as yet has not shown up, and that perhaps he is not coming back as promised, they are quick to remind the doubter that Christians have been waiting nearly 2000 years for Christ’s’ return, and they haven’t lost faith.

What do these 4 ½ billion doubters think of Christians claims? I’m speaking about the claims that snakes and donkeys talked, that the earth was made in six days, that dead men come back alive, that they are drinking the blood and eating the flesh of a long dead religious leader, that during a great flood the water rose 15 cubits above the highest mountain. (where incidentally, the temperature would be 43 below zero Fahrenheit) We shouldn’t be surprised to learn that they think Christians are nutty.

Here we need to revisit the definition of faith; “belief in, devotion to, or trust in somebody or something, especially without logical proof”. Once we begin to believe things based solely on faith, “delusion” is lurking close behind.
If we string out the logic, there is no other conclusion we can come to than the fact that faith is the starter drug which leads to delusion.

The faith of the 9-11 hijackers was so strong it led to their delusion that they would be met in Paradise by 72 beautiful virgins where they would spend eternity lounging around in a mansion while having unlimited sex and drinking from rivers of milk and honey. All they had to do was kill themselves and take a bunch of infidels with them. No proof required.

The faith that Hindus have in their god Ram, leads them to the delusion that monkeys and chipmunks can build bridges. No proof required.

The faith that Mormons have that Joseph Smith actually talked to an angel named “Moroni” who directed him to a book with gold pages inscribed in a “lost” language, complete with magic reading glasses, lead them to the delusion that their Book of Mormon actually has some validity. No proof required.

The faith of Catholics that a few words mumbled by a priest over a cracker and some wine, lead them to the delusion that it actually (not symbolically; actually) turns into the flesh and blood of a long dead religious leader. No proof required.

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)

Clearly then, as illustrated by all these examples, faith is the marijuana that leads to the crack cocaine of delusion. , “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”.

Five major religions have sprung up affecting billions of people and they all began with not one solitary witness. Hinduism (the oldest) Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mormonism.

So what do we have so far? We have established the fact that if we include everyone except the 16% of the world population consisting of non-believers, over 5 ½ billion of the world population of 6.7 billion suffer from a delusion. ““A persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence, especially as a symptom of a psychiatric condition”. 2. “A false or mistaken belief or idea about something”.

It would be unfair to apply our logic and critical thinking skills to other religions and then lay them aside when it comes to Christian claims. We must apply the same standard when considering the claims of over 1 billion Protestants. To refuse to do this is to refuse to use our brain.

Most Christians, having their own brand of delusion stuffed into their young heads by consenting adults, are hardly troubled when they learn that some 35 prior gods from Chrishna of Hindostan to Mahomet of Arabia have made the same claims as those made by Jesus. “No, no, no”, they say, in an odious claim of special pleading, “This time it’s really, really true!!” And how do they prove it’s true? Why it’s right there in the bible!! What more proof does one need?

Belief should not be something we can just “decide” to do. As I have explained before, it is impossible to believe something we disbelieve. That statement is easy to prove. Try believing for example that you are Napoleon. I’ll give you a few moments while you imagine you are wearing a bi-corn hat and it might be helpful if you will thrust your right hand into your shirt or jacket at the chest level.

Could you do it? Of course not! (Unless you are truly insane) This is why I would fail the 5 finger test which your church teaches. The believe part would trip me up every time. Professing to believe things I disbelieve would make me a hypocrite of the first order. We tend to avoid the things we fear most. I fear being a hypocrite more than I fear being ostracized by people who have lost all sense of reason and critical thinking skills.

In your summary on page 45 you state, “Perhaps you will now be slow to judge others and allow them to discover their faith”.

That got me thinking. Have you noticed how all these faiths were originally “discovered”? In the case of Judaism the discovery was made by one man, Moses, on a mountain where witnesses were forbidden under the threat of death. Secrecy was so tight even animals were forbidden to set foot on the mountain where the historic meeting between god and Moses took place. (Exodus 19:13) Of course this was during a time when snakes, donkeys and who knows what other species of animals were conversant in Hebrew and Arabic. Better to prohibit all animals rather than take the chance that a donkey might overhear the conversation between god and Moses and run down the mountain and steal Moses’ thunder by spilling the beans.

Islam was “discovered” by revelation in a cave with no witnesses.

Mormonism was “discovered” by revelation given to one man by an angel named “Moroni”. A pair of special reading stones was provided to the prophet Joseph Smith so that he and only he could translate a mysterious text into the “Book of Mormon”. Taking a clue from Exodus 19:13, Smith warned that if anyone other than himself should attempt to sneak a peek through the stones, God would strike them dead on the spot.

So it turns out that what Christians claim as their “faith” was actually “discovered” by just one guy through revelation. Then it is taught to others. The first guy had an inside track with God and allegedly, God gave him the mission to teach it to others. Nice work if you can get it.

But back to where we get our religion.

The reason someone is a Muslim or a Baptist depends almost entirely on where they were born and raised. Can anyone seriously believe Romney would be a Mormon if he was born and raised in a country like Saudi Arabia or Iran? Can anyone seriously believe the 9-11 terrorists would have “discovered” Islam if they had been raised in Alabama or Missouri? These outrageous beliefs were not “discovered” at all. They were crammed into innocent little heads at an early age before the brain had developed enough to have critical thinking skills. Hindus have faith that monkeys and chipmunks built a bridge because it was taught to them as a child by older Hindus. We can giggle at the absurdity of that proposition but if we think beyond the humor, the implication of it should become clear. When as children, we are taught all this nonsense, these delusions, it becomes virtually impossible to erase it from our minds as adults. This is why otherwise highly intelligent men like former presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, former Senate Majority leader Orrin Hatch and other prominent Mormon politicians still fervently believe that a semi-literate con man named Joseph Smith actually talked to and received revelation from an angel.

Just like the Hindus and Muslims, these otherwise highly intelligent men were deluded by adults when they were young children. Once they become deluded, as my psychiatrist friend pointed out, there is no cure. It takes a very special person to break loose from fairy tales taught and reinforced two or three times a week by adults.

I know first hand how difficult it is to rid ourselves of delusion. Hoop snakes. Do you remember hoop snakes from our childhood in rural Missouri? I first heard about hoop snakes when I was about 8 years old. Hoop snakes, I was told, whose venom was more deadly than a copperhead or rattlesnake, would form into a hoop by grasping their tail with their mouth, then roll toward their intended victim with amazing speed. There was little chance of escape since it was well known they could outrun a horse. I had never actually seen a hoop snake, nor had any of my young friends, who warned me about them. But the people who told them knew someone who knew someone who had actually seen one. I often walked alone down the country lanes of southern Missouri which were grown up on each side of the road with vines and weeds. Since there was no way to be sure from which side of the road a hoop snake might attack, I always walked in the middle of the lane to give myself a small advantage should one come rolling out of the weeds.

Then one summer, an older friend told me he didn’t believe hoop snakes existed. I remember not being convinced.

How could they not exist when someone, somewhere had actually seen one? My delusional belief in hoop snakes finally receded from my idea of reality but it took some time.

Occasionally, hoop snakes will crop up in the scientific world. In 1989 two scientists, Dr. Stanley Pons, chemistry professor at the University of Utah, and his colleague, Dr. Martin Fleischmann of the University of Southampton in England, claimed they had achieved nuclear fusion in a jar of water at room temperature. Other scientists in the field proof tested the claim and it was found to be false. If religion was held to the same standards as science we could have escaped all the terror and torment religion has fostered on humanity as one group tried to force their undocumented claims on another.

Not challenging others faiths, including Christians, (many who are gleefully awaiting Armageddon) goes against my very grain. Somehow we have developed a society in which criticizing religious beliefs is taboo. It’s just not politically correct. It doesn’t seem to matter what religion political candidates have as long as they have some kind of religion. In other words, in order to get elected a politician has to suffer from some kind of delusion. In order to be elected to office, candidates must claim to be certain of claims that nobody can be certain about.

To bring up your example of the bridge again, notice it is only in the area of religion where we no longer play by the rules. We are never admonished to respect the views of chemistry for example. If chemistry worked liked religion, the two chemists mentioned above who made the incredulous claim back in 1989 that they had discovered cold fusion, would have to be “respected” because of their views, even though other scientists would know their views were false.

Fortunately in the real world, the world of science, it doesn’t work that way.

In every other field except religion, we demand that people have good reasons for what they believe. In every other field except religion, if it becomes clear that evidence is nothing more than a conviction something is true, or if good coherent reasons for believing or the belief cannot be confirmed with evidence, their claims are quickly exposed and discredited. If we used the same standards for truth in religion as we do in other matters, we would not have Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Catholicism, Islamism or Protestantism.

In my view, leading your children or grandchildren into a church where you know propositions are being put forth which are untrue is also morally wrong. When we fill our young children’s’ heads with unfalsifiable claims it’s very nigh impossible to pry them loose by the time they have reached the age when they can begin to use reason, logic and critical thinking skills on their own. “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”.

Christians, protestant and Catholic alike, have a hard time getting their head around the idea that other religions really believe, all the nonsense they claim to believe. I can tell you they really do! Why else would otherwise rational men fly an airplane into a building at 400 mph unless they really believed this would get them a ticket to heaven where 72 virgins would be waiting for them in an unbelievably luxurious palace situated between two rivers flowing with milk and honey? These otherwise sane men really believed they were actually acting rationally. Ask yourself; if you really believed, as they did, that flying an airplane into a building to kill the enemies of God, would get you and your loved ones a ticket to eternal bliss, wouldn’t you do it? Of course you would if you really believed it. And so would I. These men simply acted rationally based on their belief system. The reason so many people have died before, on and after 9-11 is that men have acted on beliefs without requiring proof.

This is a fact we must somehow get through our thick skulls. Statistics show there are some 1.3 billion Muslims of various sects. If only 1%, one percent of them are waiting in line to get their reward in heaven by killing infidels, then 13 million nutcases are waiting out there to have a go at us. Using suitcase bombs with nuclear devices it would only take three or four dedicated individuals to bring civilization to its knees.

Ask yourself; what is the chance that three or four individuals out of 13 million zealous suicidal maniacs will never be able to pull it off? I would say the chances are two; slim and none. All because of religion which society has decided we must “respect”.

No doubt Christians would join me in condemning those adults of the Islamic world who teach their children to believe (and I mean really believe) that their prophet, Muhammad, actually received revelations from the angel Gabriel which produced the book known to Muslims as the Koran. Or that Muhammad actually rode a winged horse to heaven and back. Can there be any doubt that in this matter that over a billion Muslims are delusional? “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”

No doubt Christians would join me in condemning those adults of the Hindu world who teach their children to believe (and I mean really believe) that a bunch of monkeys and chipmunks, under the guidance of the god Ra, built a bridge between the southern tip of India and the island of Sri Lanka. Can there be any doubt that in this matter 850 million Hindus are delusional? “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”

No doubt, all protestants would join me in condemning Catholics who teach their children to believe (and I mean really believe) that a few words muttered over a cracker and some wine or grape juice actually (and I mean actually, not figuratively) turn the wine and cracker into the blood and body of Christ. Can there be any doubt in this matter that Catholics are delusional? “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”

Many Christians, with their self centeredness, and arrogance, are surprised to learn they make up a small minority of the world population. The fact is, all of their various denominations and sects added together; Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Church of Christ, Pentecostals, Seventh Day Adventists; the whole shootin’ match combined, still make up only 33.32 percent of the world population of 6.7 billion.

Think about that for a moment. After 2000 years of practice and effort, and with God and Jesus both on their side, Christians are still batting a miserable 33 percent. It’s interesting that in the 2007 major league baseball season the Tampa Bay Devil Rays came in dead last and were considered sorry losers by most Christians who follow baseball. But even the Devil Rays did better than all Christians combined by winning over 40 percent of their games. And they only got to practice six months, not 2000 years.

How can this be? What strange neural activity is going on in our brains when we can consider a 40% success rate a miserable failure in baseball on the one hand and a 33% success rate in religion a dazzling success on the other?

No doubt all 4 ½ billion inhabitants in this world who, like myself, reject the notion that Jesus is somehow the “savior” of mankind would join me in condemning Christians who they outnumber 2 to 1. Christians teach their children to believe (and I mean really believe) that snakes and donkeys talked, that their god can give them useful information on how to raise children even though he drowned all but eight of his own, that he caused the “sun to stand still” in order that one of his agents could have more time to slaughter even more innocent little children, that he killed his own son who came back alive. Christians teach their young children that somehow all the outrageous and heinous acts in both the old and new testaments were all moral, righteous and honorable. Gentle Jesus meek and mild tells his followers in Luke 19:27, “But as for these enemies of mine who didn't want me to be their king-bring them here and slaughter them in my presence!” If Jesus were to return tomorrow and his wishes carried out, the mountain of rotting corpses the executioners would be standing on would be higher than the mountain where Satan allegedly tried to tempt him. No less than a two thirds majority of the worlds population are having none of it. In this case I vote with the majority.

Can there be any doubt in this matter that Christians are delusional? “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”

As Carl Sagan puts it in his excellent book, “Dream Haunted World”, “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we have been bamboozled long enough we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we have been taken. Once you give a charlatan a power over you, you almost never get it back.
After I had some time to think this over I realized he was exactly right. The deluded patient who thinks the FBI or Mafia has been trying to kill him for the past five years, (but hasn’t even though they easily could) are no different than Christians who have been claiming for nearly two thousand years that Christ is coming back. Somehow they are so deluded they completely ignore the fact that Jesus told his disciples that he would be back even before some of them died. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”—Matthew 16:21-28 (NIV)

Well, actually Jesus wasn’t telling the truth. He probably thought he was telling the truth. . In Michael Shermers’ excellent book, “Why People Believe Weird Things”, he explains (p.96) how and why people who claim they were abducted by space aliens, really believe they were abducted by space aliens. The best thing we can say about it is that people who think they are telling the truth aren’t lying.

It’s quite possible that Jesus really believed his own story. If we really believe something and pass it on to someone else as the truth we can’t be accused of lying. However if we (as we should) ask for evidence and none is forthcoming, then we can assume either the person is lying or suffering from a delusion. But here we run into the same old problem as noted above. Merely believing something is not good enough. If believing something is all it takes then the Muslims would have found the “right” religion. But so would Catholics…and Hindus…and Christians. So there we go around in our delusional circle again. If the best we can say about Jesus is that he was delusional, no wonder nearly 5 billion people reject the notion he is their personal savior.

In a follow-up e-mail here is what my psychiatrist friend wrote:

“What I told you and believe is the fact that religion is a delusion. God is a delusion. This program was installed into our brain's hardware by our parents and society while we were growing up. A lot of people do not know how to un-install this program when they grow up. In fact, they are afraid that without this program, they cannot function or feel complete. There are two kinds of people; those who question and those who simply comply. Questioning people become agnostics and atheists. Complying people become religious. People who are deeply insecure become fanatics. The Religious Right in the U. S. is a mild example. Islamic terrorists are an extreme example”. (Emphasis and italics mine)

Think about that statement for a moment and it immediately becomes clear why 93 percent of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, flatly reject the notion of a personal god. The National Academy of Sciences is made up of the crème de le crème of the science world. The Academy membership is composed of approximately 2,100 members of whom nearly 200 have won Nobel Prizes. One has to ask, what is going on here? How is it that god would decide to pass out the lion’s share of intelligence to people who don’t even believe he exists?

“Which is more important, defending someone’s faith or defending the truth?, We find that scientist are interested in defending the truth. Pretending to find answers based solely on belief is a good way to get ourselves killed. We require more than faith that the thoracic surgeon knows what he is doing. We want to know. It seems to me that religion is the only facet of our lives where we are willing to accept propositions on faith rather than knowledge.
All this would be of no concern if not for the fact that people act on their beliefs and by acting on their beliefs it affects me. When the 9-11 Muslim fanatics killed thousands of innocent people and did trillions of dollars damage to the world economy they were acting on their beliefs. Every day suicide bombers kill themselves and innocent victims while acting on their beliefs. The Hindus who tied up traffic and stopped trains in northern India, over their imaginary bridge constructed by imaginary monkeys and imaginary chipmunks at the direction of an imaginary god were acting on their beliefs. When Catholics tortured and killed millions during the Crusades and during the Spanish Inquisition they were acting on their beliefs. When Christians burned innocent victims at the stake, hung innocent women accused of being witches, and murder abortion clinic doctors they are acting on their beliefs.
The fact that about 850 million Hindus believe monkeys built a bridge says nothing about the truth. Instead it’s a sorry example of how, as young children, these delusions were planted in their innocent little minds by adults and now, as adults themselves, they are unable to purge themselves of the lie. As a result they are now, acting on their faith, not something they discovered but something they were taught. Now they are holding up a shortcut for seagoing ships that is costing shareholders in shipping companies as well as the shippers using their services, literally millions of dollars per year, since the shortcut would save them 60 hours per vessel for a roundtrip transit through the proposed canal. There will be no changing their minds because as my trusted friend pointed out, there is no known cure for delusion.

Let’s again address your all important question,” Which is more important, defending someone’s else’s faith or defending the truth”? Here we can surely agree that defending the truth is much more important.
But if we apply that principle to the Hindus and their bridge, shouldn’t it also apply to the Christian faith? If we are eager to defend the truth against Muslim claims that Muhammad rode a winged horse to heaven, shouldn’t Christians expect Muslims to demand they defend the truth proclaimed in their holy book that someone named Jesus was killed and came back alive, and when he was killed long dead saints popped up out of their graves and sauntered into town where they were seen by many? How do Christians go about defending those claims as the truth? To say, “Because it’s in the bible” is not good enough because Muslims claim the same thing about the Koran. So here we go in our maddening delusional circle again. Before I leave the subject and go on to something less depressing, a revisit to the definition of “delusion” might be helpful.

On page 34 you mention Paul reaffirms that his gospel is not something he made up. He received it by revelation. He goes to Jerusalem in response to a revelation. We have read Thomas Paine’s thoughts on revelation


So that puts Christians squarely on the horns of a dilemma. After all, Mahomet got his revelations from the angel Gabriel in a cave. If we can believe the revelations in our Christian bible, how can we reject those of Mahomet who got his in a similar manner? And how can we reject the revelations sent to Joseph Smith by the angel “Moroni”? This is why I contend we cannot just snatch a belief system out of thin air without any proof. If Christians can demand proof from Muslims, Mormons and Hindus, then they in turn can demand proof from Christians. Christians will find their circular reasoning that the bible is true because the bible says it is true will not fly with all the other religions. They use the same circular reasoning to prove they are right. I am heeding your warning on page 30 where you say, “CAUTION; BE PREPARED TO THINK!

In part 2 page 27 you say, “The fact that Christianity has survived until today speaks for itself”. Correct me if I misinterpret your meaning here but it seems to me you are inferring that truth is a function of longevity; that Christianity has “stood the test of time”. If that is the inference, then we will be required to consider the belief systems of the pagan tribes of New Guinea. Anthropologists tell us they have inhabited the island for at least 40,000 years and possibly as long as 60,000. These people, not infrequently, had their neighbors for dinner. (Literally) Does the fact that paganism on New Guinea survived 20 to 30 times longer than Christianity speak for paganism?

Before I propose my solution to the problem of religion I will run some statistics by you. They were found in the CIA World Factbook.

Let’s assume scientists are fairly accurate in their estimation of the age of the earth as 4.55 billion years.(Unlike Christian apologetics they can actually present evidence to back the claim.)

First, the human mind is not designed to comprehend billions of years. We might comprehend a couple hundred (at most) but millions or billions are beyond our comprehension. There is a way however that we can come to understand the vast expanse of time as related to this planet earth. Here is how we will do it.

We will use a 24 hour clock (not the modern digital clock) but an old fashioned round clock with hour hands, minute hands and a second hand. Now let’s imagine the earth was formed at midnight last night and will end at midnight tonight. We can even call it Armageddon if we delight in that fantasy. 4.55 billion years started at midnight last night and will end with Armageddon when the second had strikes midnight tonight.

Now let’s squeeze all that 4.55 billion years into the 24 hour time period.

Here is what we have:
Each hour on our 24 hour clock is equivalent to 189,583,333 years.
Each minute equals 3,159,722 years
Each second equals 52,719 years.

So now, starting at midnight last night, lets start the clock.

Not much happened for a long, long time. In fact it was getting late in the evening, around 10:00 pm, before fishes showed up. The dinosaurs came even later; around 10:40. By 20 minutes till midnight they were all gone. Twenty minutes remaining on our 24 hour clock. Have we shown up yet? Nope. We homo sapiens with our 1500 cc brains won’t show up for another 19 minutes and 56 seconds. Only four seconds before midnight! Four seconds corresponds to 195,000 years ago.

Where is God?

Well, actually he won’t reveal himself for another 190,000 years. For 190,000 years he let his finest creation suffer from every discomfort known to man; cold, disease, starvation, wild animals. If our ancestors lived beyond the age of 30 they were considered senior citizens. There are no records to indicate they even knew about him. In a photo finish worthy of any good movie, he finally came out of the shadows (literally, according to Genesis) and revealed himself to mankind after the second hand on our 24 hour clock had already launched itself into the very last second of that 24 hours. Remember, on our clock one second is represented by 52,719 years. One tenth of a second represents 5272 years. Since Jesus showed up around 2000 years ago, we have less than one tenth of one second left on our 24 hour clock when he (in effect) says “YO! All you miserable sinners!! Here I am!”

2000 years. That’s .038 of one second before everything goes to hell in a hand basket and we blow ourselves to kingdom come.

And you know what? I believe it. Not because it says so in some fictional book but because we have failed to use our brains. And why have we failed to use our brains? Because of our delusional religions.

Lets back up 3.794 seconds to the moment of our creation.

I don’t want to appear immodest, but if I was all powerful and all knowing and had nearly 24 god hours to come up with my crowning achievement (us), I’m pretty sure I could have come up with a better model, even if I had to start 3 or 4 seconds earlier in god time. For example here are some of the changes I would have incorporated into the test models before it became necessary to drown all but eight of them.

1. Our eyes are wired wrong. Our optic nerve is on the wrong side. Where it has to make its way through to the “brain” side, it leaves humans with a blind spot. Squid and octopuses are wired correctly. They don’t have blind spots. How come squid and octopus got a better system? Even the lowly bat gets around in the dark much better than we do. Apologist will inadvertently make my case when they quickly point out, “Yeah, but that’s because they emit little squeaks which bounce off things…sorta like radar”. Exactly. One might think if god could give squid and octopuses perfect eyesight and outfit bats with radar, he would have had the foresight to do the same for us, his most favored creature.

2. Our gums deteriorate and our teeth rot out. This causes untold pain and misery and dental bills that could balance the national budget. Sharks have the ability to grow replacement teeth. How come we were not blessed with this advantage? Does god love sharks more than he loves us?

3. Our ears appear to be designed by a mad scientist. It has this crazy quilt of parts with names like hammer, stirrup, cochlea, semicircular canals, and tiny hairs called cilia. If this stuff doesn’t work properly we get nausea. And when it all gets stopped up due to colds it hurts like hell when the pressure changes. I cannot tell you the times during my career as a Captain with Delta Air Lines that I descended the airplane early (at great fuel cost to the company) because some poor soul was suffering horrible ear pain due to a blockage in the Eustachian tubes. Surely god knew we would someday have airplanes.

4. When Jesus marveled at how small the mustard seed is, he evidently had no knowledge of the aids virus. 15,000 aids viruses would easily fit on a mustard seed with room to spare. This tiny little bastard has killed over 25 million of us, making it one of the smallest, yet most dangerous predators humans have ever encountered. Since 1981, when the aids virus started, human deaths from sharks, alligators, snakes, lightening strikes, drowning, avalanches, floods and wars combined, would not come close to the 25 million deaths caused by aids. An untold number of deaths have occurred because the Catholic Church preached against the use of condoms.
That tiny little virus, so small it can only be see under a microscope , has already killed 25 million of us and is working on another 25. And we haven’t even mentioned those other teensy, weensy little viruses like typhoid, yellow fever, flu and malaria which have killed hundreds of millions more of our species. We have dominion? Over what? Man is the only animal I know of that you could drop buck naked almost anywhere in the world and he would not be able to survive.

5. “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.” Matt. 18:19 . Ummm…not really. Jesus may have over-reached a little here. I know a guy who lost an arm in an accident and my money says you could get, not just two, but all 35 million Baptists together and have them pray for the arm to grow back and “My Father in heaven” wouldn’t come through on that promise. Not even if all 35 million waved their arms above their head in unison, in order to get gods’ attention. What if the Pope himself led a billion Catholics in prayer in order to restore the arm? Nope. I have so much faith that prayer doesn’t work, I am willing to wager every penny I have that if all the Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and Hindus and Mormons on the entire planet all prayed in unison for the arm to grow back, it wouldn’t do it.

But you know what? Salamanders can do it. Salamanders don’t pray but they excel when it comes to growing back body parts. You grab a salamander and whack off his tail and in no time, Voila!! A new tail! Not only tails. They can also grow new limbs, parts of their hearts and the retinas and lenses in their eyes. Humans cannot do any of that. How come? If god so loved us so much that he gave his only begotten son, surely he would have wanted to treat us as well as a slimy, disgusting salamander. After all, if he created the universe, he had nearly 14 billion years to think about it. No matter how often or how fervently we plead with god to grow us a new limb, he refuses to do it. Does god love salamanders more than us?

6. My all time favorite. Somehow, god in making us in his image, managed to place our sex organs right next to the place where our excrement comes out. What civil engineer in his right mind would put a playground right in the middle of a waste disposal dump?

Most people are unaware that 99% of all species of life that ever existed are now extinct. Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception. Intelligent design? How intelligent is that? If 99% of all airplanes crashed and burned, nobody would set foot in one of the damned things. We have to ask…how come god created all these creatures and then wiped them out? I could name dozens more examples but you get the idea. I am forced to agree with Woody Allen when he remarked, “The best thing I can say about god was that he was an under achiever”.

Let’s continue with some statistics gleaned from a Google search of the CIA World Factbook . I used it because it’s the most up to date I could find. The numbers were as of July 2008. The website of the World Council of Churches publishes the same numbers.

World population….6,707,000,000. (July 08)

First the bad news. With a death rate of 8.23 deaths per 1000 population, 55,201,589 people on this planet die each year.

Now the worse news. With a birth rate of 20.18 births per 1000 population, 90, 682, 578 people on this planet are born each year.

That means every year the world population increases by:
35,480,989 each year.
97,208 each day!!
4,050 each hour!!


So what does this all mean in terms of the Christian religion? In order to answer that we need to examine some Christian beliefs.

First, most Christians say they believe the bible is true. When one thinks about it they are forced to say the bible is true because if it’s not true, then their whole belief system is in danger of crumbling down around their ankles. For now, just for the sake of argument, let’s assume they are correct. Let’s agree the bible is in fact, true.

Second, let’s further assume that Christians will say their savior, Jesus, is a truthful gent. He does not lie. Couldn’t tell a lie if he tried. So for now, just for the sake of argument, let’s agree that Jesus cannot tell a lie.

Third, Christians claim their god is omniscient. Omniscient means, “all knowing”. God knows everything that, has happened, is happening and will happen. I’m not sure what your church believes about that since they don’t publish a “creed” but I know the Baptists believe god is omniscient because the Baptist Creed clearly states it.

Fourth, Christians claim we should pay attention to and follow the advice of Jesus.
Jesus says in Luke 19:27: “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me”.

As I explained earlier, there are some 4.7 billion of the earths’ inhabitants who heartily reject the idea that Jesus should reign over them. The very idea is repugnant to them. If Jesus were to appear today and his orders carried out, the mountain of rotting corpses he would be standing on would be higher than the highest mountain where he had the alleged conversation with Satan took place. Hitler “only” killed six million Jews. Jesus would have his henchmen kill 750 times as many. He would make Hitler look like a Sunday school teacher by comparison. It appears to me this presents yet another dilemma for dogmatic Christians. Either Jesus is a pathological maniac or the bible is untrue. And how can something that is untrue be divinely inspired?

On page 45 you point out that Jesus is never quoted as telling women to keep silent in church. True. Instead he says something much worse. In John 14:6, Jesus condemns to eternal agony the 4 ½ billion people presently living on this earth who reject him as their personal savior. So it’s gentle Jesus, meek and mild that has condemned the majority of mankind, not the god of the Old Testament, depraved as he was. The God of the Old Testament condoned slavery, the murder of innocent men, women and children, the murder of surly teenagers and a host of other things so repugnant and disgusting that no moral, ethical and honorable person should ever allow their children to read about it. Regardless of all that, never once (no matter how hard you look) can you find anywhere in the Old Testament that all those victims who were murdered in god’s name would spend an eternity in hell. I would challenge anyone to show me in the Old Testament where that claim is made. Only in the New Testament does it say that. The only conclusion any reasonable person can make is that god sent Jesus to do his dirty work. Savage and vindictive as he is, god is a saint compared to Gentle Jesus.

To begin with, A whopping 67%, or nearly 4 ½ billion of this planets’ inhabitants flatly reject Jesus’ claim in John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”. Where does Jesus’ claim leave us? Well, if the Bible is true and Jesus never lies, then clearly, 67% or 4,493,685,411 of the planets’6,706,993,152 inhabitants alive on earth today will spend eternity in unimaginable torment and agony. Let me write that number out for you. Four billion, four hundred and ninety three million, six hundred and eighty five thousand, four hundred and eleven.

When I point that out to Christians they squirm a little and usually respond with something like, “Well, I’m not saying all those people are going to hell”. My response is: “Of course you’re not! You are much too kind and decent. You aren’t the one who is making the threat. It comes directly from your Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild”. And remember…we just agreed; The Bible is true and Jesus does not lie!

But wait! It gets worse! Catholics make up 16.1% of the total world population. As you are well aware, your church, as well as the 35 million member Baptist church teaches that Catholics have a snowball chance in hell of making it to heaven. So now we have to raise the number of souls condemned to eternal agony by Gentle Jesus from 67% or 4,493,685,411 up to 83.1 % or 5,573,511,309, a whopping increase of One Billion, Seventy Nine Thousand, Eight Hundred and Twenty Six. Satan must be licking his lips!

But wait, it gets better….(er, sorry) worse!! You have indicated to me that your church is quite convinced in their belief that Baptists will fare no better than Catholics. We need to separate them out with the rest of the chaff. There are about 35 million of them. So now we will need no less than 5, 608,511,309 seats on the Southbound. I wonder if even Jesus had any idea of the size of his understatement when he said , “Many are called, but few are chosen”

But wait! It gets worse. The July 2008 CIA World Book statistics indicates that 133,347,132 brand new humans are born into the world every year. No less than 110,811,466 of these innocent little newborns are going to wind up in hell. Let’s see…110,811, 466 divided by 365 days = 303,593 per day. That’s a whopping 12,649 lost souls per hour. Wow! 210 per minute!! I just realized that in the past 45 minutes since I started researching all this stuff, nearly 10,000 people went straight to hell. Incredible! Looks like there will be plenty of seats on the northbound train. What a pity these young Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic and Baptists babies were doomed just because they happened to be born in the wrong country or into the wrong religion.
Eternity is a long, long, long, long time. We should thank our lucky stars we and our families were born in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

Here are some more statistics that should make all the Church of Christ preachers exceedingly proud of themselves. Best estimates place the number of religions in the world at around 4200. Nobody knows for sure just how many because new delusions are always popping up while others fade away. Whatever the number, I can imagine how good your brethren must feel, knowing that of all the religions in the world, they discovered the one true faith. If we divide 4200 into one, we see that each religion has a .000238009 chance of getting it right. In other words, almost no chance at all. Yet these guys are absolutely and utterly sure they have nailed it. One has to wonder from whence this fount of wisdom sprang. As the saying goes, it don’t get any better than that. It’s like pulling the winning lottery ticket out of a bowl with 4200 tickets
I’ll wager your preacher never thought of it like that. It should serve him well if he chooses to use it in his next sermon. He can explain to his followers (especially the children) just how lucky they are to have the correct religion chosen for them.

But wait! It just occurred to me. The Baptists have exactly the same chance even though they outnumber Church of Christ members by 10 to 1, the chance of them choosing the one true religion is the same. Even though Catholics out number Baptists by about 10 to 1, their chance of practicing the one true religion are no better.

What lesson can we learn here? Simply this; the number of delusional people counts for nothing. There is no safety in numbers when it comes to being delusional. Whether one person truly believes he is eating and drinking Jesus or whether 1 billion believe it, its still a delusion. And whether one Mormon thinks Joseph Smith actually talked to an angel and dug up some golden plates or whether all 15 million adherents believe it, it’s still a delusion. Whether one person
believes Muhammad flew a winged horse to heaven and back, or whether 1 ½ billion people believe it; its still a delusion. Robert Pirsig said it best. “A delusion held by one person is a mental illness, held by a few is a cult, held by many is a religion”.

In 1991 the spacecraft Voyager 1 was on its way out of our solar system. Ground control issued a command for it to turn around and take pictures of each of the planets it had visited. When the picture of earth was taken, the spacecraft was more than 4 billion miles away. The Earth, appearing not much larger than a peppercorn was captured in a ray of sunlight. When Carl Sagan saw it he was quite moved by this image of our tiny world. Here is what he had to say about it.

From this particular vantage point the earth might not seem of any particular interest, but for us its different. Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us.

On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of; every human being who ever lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering; thousands of confident religions, their ideologies and doctrines, every hunter and forger, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species live there on a tiny mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited on the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel of scarcely distinguishable inhabitants on another corner; how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturing, our imagined self-importance, the delusion we have of some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from somewhere to save us from ourselves. The earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit? Yes. Settle? Not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceit than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish this pale blue dot, the only home we have ever known.

In my view, anybody who can read those words and be unmoved suffers from a shallowness of mind from which recovery is not hopeful.

Many of my non-religious friends ask me why I become so passionate concerning my hostility toward religion. “Just relax”, they say. “Let these people believe what they want to believe”.

Here is the problem with that line of thinking. We are rapidly approaching a time when only three or four people in the possession of dirty bombs, hidden in suitcases, can bring civilization to its knees. As I pointed out earlier, faith without evidence leads to delusion. With the world teetering on the abyss, we no longer have the right to believe in propositions for which there is no evidence. Just as the scientists who claimed to have discovered cold fusion without providing proper evidence were disgraced, we must get to a point where those who make claims based solely on their faith are also disgraced.

My friends who preach moderation should read what Sam Harris has to say on page 39 of his best seller, “The End of Faith”.

"But religious moderation still represents a failure to criticize the unreasonable (and dangerous) certainty of others. As a consequence of our silence on these matters, we live in a country in which a person cannot get elected president if he openly doubts the existence of heaven or hell. This is truly remarkable, given that there is no other body of "knowledge" that we require our political leaders to master. Even a hair stylist must pass a licensing exam before applying his trade in the United States, and yet those given the power to make war or national policy.....those whose decisions will inevitably affect human life for generations....are not expected to know anything in particular before setting to work. They do not have to be political scientists, economists, or even lawyers; They need not have studied international relations, military history, resource management, civil engineering, or any other field of knowledge that must be brought to bear on the governance of a modern superpower; they need only be expert fund-raisers, comport themselves well on television, and be indulgent of certain myths. In our next presidential election, an actor who reads his Bible would almost certainly defeat a rocket scientist who does not. Could there be any clearer indication we are allowing unreason and otherworldliness to govern our affairs.

Conclusion

Its time we rid ourselves of these delusions and quit teaching them to our young children. It’s time to understand that the religion we practice is based not on some profound truth. It started as word of mouth and went through many generations before it was written down but the place where we were born. Its time to understand that our morals don’t depend on our religion. If morals were dependent on belief in a god, we should find that the 93% of our most gifted scientists that don’t believe in god would be out raping and stealing and pillaging instead of finding cures for diseases and discovering real truths about the world.