The first few months behind bars were the worst of my life. Every night I’d stare into the darkness, waiting for the nightmares, waiting to hear those horrible screams all over again. Even here behind these thick penitentiary walls, there was no hiding from what I’d done to that poor family.

Then, one night, it happened: I lay alone in my cell, my only companion the visions of wickedness that filled my head. Suddenly, there was a light, and somehow the light spoke to me. It was the voice of Jesus Christ. He told me he had died for the sins of mankind and all could find peace through his salvation. Was I ready to repent?

Uh, let me think about that for a sec. Yup!

It was a stroke of unbelievable luck. Here I thought I’d spend the rest of my life agonizing over that night I broke into a random house and methodically tortured all five of its residents, but Jesus was like, “Nah, you’re good.” He took all those years I expected to wallow in suffocating guilt for having forced a mother to choose the order in which I strangled her children and wiped them away in a jiff.

Which is ironic because the family I murdered in cold blood was praying to Jesus like crazy the whole time.

It gets better… and really shows the horrid problem with Christianity. It really says that you can do whatever you want and all you have to do is accept Jesus and confess your sins and everything is put right. It’s a free pass to engage in abhorrent behavior.

Although the piece on The Onion is satire, it could be mistaken for sincerity (if it weren’t on The Onion). It’s fairly easy to see how thinking like this can arise from Christian beliefs.

Sure, every once in a while, my dreams are interrupted by the image of that 6-year-old with a broken neck pointing at me, but that’s why I keep ol’ 1 John 1:9 taped to my ceiling: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Pretty straightforward, right? And it’s not like that kid isn’t in heaven right now, bathing in His loving light and everything.

See, God’s looking out for both of us.

Many vocal Christians condemn atheists, saying that if we don’t have the bible to guide us, we’re free to engage in whatever behavior we want… without consequence. It’s simply not true. There’s no escaping the consequences of our actions. There’s no redemption for terrible acts other than that granted by those who’ve suffered from our actions. If I wrong someone, I can ask him or her for forgiveness. That’s my only option.

Christians, because of their dogma, have the easy out of asking God (or Jesus) for forgiveness. It might make them feel better but it’s irresponsible, self-centered, and hurtful toward those they’ve wronged. Christianity does, however, allow for repeated reprehensible behavior… with the eternal “Get out of Jail Free” card.

The Onion brings it home with the closing line…

Had I known that sooner, I would’ve killed way more people.

…because Christianity allows it.

The most disturbing thing about this video is that, even though it’s made by The Thinking Atheist, I can imagine it being shown in a church to the approval of the congregation.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rwioe1SGkQ

I recently purchased some of their downloadable videos and Craig and I are going to watch them as time permits. Not having the patience to wait for a joint viewing, however, I went ahead and watched Four Power Questions to Ask an Evolutionist, a talk given by Mike Riddle, a somewhat prolific contributor to the AiG collection of misinformation.

Riddle starts by explaining that apologetics is not only knowing how to answer questions, but also knowing how to ask the right questions and how to take the discussion “back to the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ where it should be.” His topic for this talk, of course, is what questions to ask an evolutionist. Now, the AiG folks have always had a problem when it comes to understanding the theory of evolution and Riddle is no exception.

His list of topics to cover in the talk are as follows:

The Bible has answers

The origin of the universe

The origin of life

The fossil record

Origin of dinosaurs

Of those five topics, only two have anything to do with evolution. The “bible” item obviously has nothing to do with evolution, but Riddle, like many of his AiG colleagues, doesn’t seem to understand that evolution also has nothing to do with the origin of the universe or the origin of life. It only deals with how life developed after it appeared… much like the Big Bang Theory only deals with the development of the universe after it existed (Riddle doesn’t understand that, either, by the way).

So right from the start, Riddle shows that he doesn’t even have a basic understanding of the topic on which he is talking. Interestingly enough, that’s a pretty good foreshadowing of what is to come in this talk.

I don’t want to quote everything he says in his talk, but I’ll quote some of it. A common tactic Riddle uses (as well as most other creationists and deniers of other stripes) is to cherry pick quotes, use them out of context, and hold them up as evidence backing up his position.

To start, he quotes Cornell Professor William Provine as saying…

Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear — and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind.

Riddle presents this quote saying, “Here’s where we send our children to be educated and this is what they’re taught,” implying that this is part of the classroom curriculum. However, the quote in question was made during a debate about whether Darwinism is a science or a natural philsophy between Provine and Phillip Johnson in 1994.

Don’t get me wrong. I think Provine’s statement is completely acceptable and would be fine with it being a point in his teaching curriculum, but it was just a quote from a debate… presented by Riddle as if it were in the collegiate educational mandate. After the quote, Riddle says, “Now is that a true statement?” followed by “Well let’s take a look at what the bible does have to teach.”

This leads him into presenting the biblical “rock solid foundation to stand on.” His “evidence” for this foundation, of course, is the bible itself. He lays it out as follows:

Who created? God

What was created? All things

How was it created? By His power

When was it created? In the beginning

How long did it take to create? 6 days

He naturally goes into far more detail about each point, pronouncing each item as undeniably true, including that the six days of creation were a six literal days, even showing a “partial list” of (nineteen) scientists who believe that the creation days were six literal days. His points are somewhat absurd in that they say nothing specific or useful. In explaining that we know how “all things” were created, he points to bible verses that state “God said” and “word of God” and concludes, “so the bible clearly tells us how God created and it is not open to anybody’s opinion.” That’s hardly specific or useful.

In his argument that the creation days were six literal days, he uses a weak example of the Ten Commandments being simple to understand in plain language (“Thou shalt not steal… Thou shalt not murder”) meaning that the rest of the bible is simple to understand in plain language, too. So when the bible says “six days,” it means six literal days. This is important because, as emphasized repeatedly by AiG speakers, if you don’t believe Genesis is real, then the rest of the bible falls apart.

After going over his six points, Riddle then authoritatively claims that “we have a firm, rock solid foundation. We have answers.” I don’t know if I even have the words to describe how absurd his claim is. How do a few quips from the bible create a “firm, rock solid foundation?” They don’t, and since they don’t, the rest of his talk is made even more absurd, knowing that his initial premise is completely flawed.

After laying his “foundation,” Riddle gets on with the heart of his topic, making claims about “evolutionists” that really show off his ignorance of the topic… to the point of being bizarre. He starts by asking what evolution is and then makes this claim (sic).

You know the sad thing about this is? I can go out and ask ten different evolutionists to give me a definition of evolution. I’ll get ten different answers. Isn’t that sad? No wonder our children are in such confusion. There’s no set standard or definition of evolution.

Wait, what?!

There’s no set standard or definition of evolution? That will come as a complete shock to thousands of biologists, paleontologists, geneticists, and anthropologists. Not that Riddle’s rhetorical coffin needed any more nails in it, but that statement would certainly qualify as the “final nail.” However, not to be deterred by reality, Riddle confidently strides on, explaining what evolution really is, since no “evolutionists” seem to know (sic).

Evolution is based on something called materialism. That is the ideology that all that exists in this universe is mass and energy. It is the ideology that there is no creator god. Folks if there is no creator god, there is no Jesus Christ which the bible clearly teaches Jesus Christ was the creator. In other words, if evolution therefore is true, then the bible has to be wrong or if the bible is true, then evolution has to be wrong.

I just want to point out that he didn’t define evolution even a little bit. Again, however, Riddle is not deterred by his shortcomings. Reiterating that he already has a foundation and has answers (from the bible), he asks if evolutionists have a foundation. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but he concludes they don’t… as he finally gets into his “power questions,” the first of which has to do with the origin of the universe, something about which evolution says absolutely nothing. Actually, Riddle spends the vast majority of his talk arguing about things irrelevant to evolution.

His first question, after giving a mocking explanation of the big bang, is “Where did the matter come from to create the big bang?” After a few more mocking comments about supposed answers he gets to this question, he states that this is a perfectly legitimate scientific question.

Shockingly, I agree with him. It is a perfectly legitimate scientific question… one that cannot be answered by a simple, dismissive “God did it” response… and one that has absolutely nothing to do with evolution.

Riddle then proceeds to cherry pick some other quotes in an attempt to show how ridiculous this whole “big bang” idea is. He quotes from the April 2002 edition of Discover magazine, falsely attributing the quote to an article about Alan Guth’s ideas regarding the Big Bang theory:

The universe burst into something from absolute nothing – zero, nada. And as it got bigger, it became filled with even more stuff that came from absolutely nowhere.

The main problem with this quote is that it appears nowhere in the Discover Magazine article. It appeared on the cover of the magazine, but not as a quote from Guth. If Riddle would have actually read the article, he would have gotten the actual explanations, but that wouldn’t have suited his purpose, which seems to be mocking science and misleading his audience. He further displays his ignorance about the science, offering more cherry-picked, out-of-context quotes and pretending to understand quantum physics.

Of course, he claims, the counter-question will be “Who created God?” He has an answer, of course, and quotes a couple bible verses.

And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM:
- Exodus 3:14

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
- Revelations 22:13

Of course, he concludes that (sic)…

In other words, the bible teaches very clearly god is a self eternal being and has no beginning no end.

He says that the reason he uses the bible is that it’s “the most powerful tool we have.” I’ll leave the snarky response to that statement to my readers.

Riddle continues on for quite a while about the question of the origin of the universe, but I want to move on… but only after saying that I always find it interesting when creationists like Riddle ridicule science on one hand, but want to use science to support their creationist claims on the other hand. The same science they mock is okay with them if they can use it to back up their claims (which is a common denialist trait in general).

So on to power question number two, which is “How did life originate?”

That’s a good question. It has nothing to do with the theory of Evolution, but it’s a good question. However, Riddle clearly doesn’t understand even the question, much less the answers, because he immediately sets up not only a false dichotomy, but an invalid false dichotomy (is there such a thing?). He says there are only two possible options for the origin of life.

Life evolved by natural processes

Life was created

Wait, what?

Point one has to do with evolution, which can only happen after life originated! Since I’ve come this far, however, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he really meant “Life originated by natural processes.” Then, at least, it’s a valid false dichotomy.

As the ignorance continues to manifest itself, Riddle states (sic):

The “model of evolution” teaches that about 4.5 billion years ago, the Earth formed all by naturalistic processes. This is their foundation for how life got started. Then, over long periods of time, chemicals began to form in a pool where they nicknamed the primordial soup. Then, over more long periods of time, these chemicals bonded together to make molecules, and finally, over more long periods of time, these molecules bonded together to make the first living cell and we have our formula “time plus chance equals life.” Does that make you feel pretty good about yourself? Something exploded, formed a pool of chemicals, and here you are. That gives you some self worth there.

That almost makes my head explode. What he has mockingly described is “abiogenesis,” the hypothesis that life originated by chance from inanimate matter (except for the “and here you are” part, which could factor in evolution). What is even more telling about this quote, however, are the statements about feeling good and giving self worth… as if having a healthy sense of self worth has any bearing on the validity of scientific facts. It’s an argument that I do hear from creationists regarding evolution… that evolution makes life pointless and makes humans “just another animal.” They seem to think that science is invalidated if it makes claims they don’t like (again, another classic denialist trait).

Riddle follows this up with more bible quotes that say that God created everything, of course, but he again follows that up with simple science, defining atoms, molecules, amino acids, and proteins… sounding very authoritative and knowledgeable. He uses this information to lead into a discussion of the Miller Experiment (more technically known as the Miller-Urey Experiment) which was done back in 1953 and which he claims is in “just about every biology textbook in this country.”

The Miller-Urey Experiment was groundbreaking, but that was 57 years ago and scientific knowledge has progressed a long way since then, so using it as a refutation of abiogenesis seems disingenuous at best. Riddle tries to make the experiment sound very dramatic and adds how horrible it is that students are then taught that we don’t need a creator because we can do it ourselves. It’s a long part of the talk and it’s essentially pointless, but he goes there anyway.

Amusingly, he follows it up with a demonstration of… something… where he asks the sum of three plus one… but the answer is not allowed to be four. He then accepts answers of seven, thirteen, and six. He summarizes the point of his little demonstration by saying…

If you rule the truth out, if you cannot accept the truth, you have to accept anything in its place and that is what evolution is.

It’s ironic, isn’t it? The irony immediately grows when he continues with this (sic)…

What we are observing today out of our universities and high schools is our students are coming out of those schools repeating the same mistakes we did 30 years ago because we’re unwilling to teach all the scientific evidence.

The irony, of course, is that the same statement would apply to Christian apologetics, but instead of a thirty year time span, it would be a 2,000 year time span because of an unwillingness to teach any of the scientific evidence. Creationists like Riddle are making every attempt to move science and our corresponding understanding of our world back to the bronze age.

At this point, the fifty minute video is thirty-six minutes complete. That means that the final twelve minutes will be used for the final two power questions. Amusingly, the final two questions are the only questions that actually address evolution.

The lead up to power question number three is tedious and reiterates many of the fallacies that Riddle has already perpetrated earlier in the talk. Basically, it’s “Where are the transitional fossils?” Predictably, his objection to the fossil record is based on the “Cambrian Explosion.” This is such a tired, old creationist cliché that it’s tiresome just to think about addressing it yet again. Riddle displays not only ignorance of the fossil record, but ignorance of the Cambrian and Pre-Cambrian periods. To get the facts, go here and here as starting points. Both links provide plenty of references and follow-up links. Perhaps email some of them to Riddle.

I don’t think Riddle would be satisfied, however. He asserts that he won’t settle for three or four “alleged” (yes, he says “alleged”) transitional fossils, but, showing his boundless ignorance about the process of fossilization, says he needs millions of transitional fossils. Laughably, he explains…

I need to see the observable evidence. Why? Because great claims require real evidence.

Biblical claims, of course, need no such scrutiny in his mind.

I really want to say that his statements are born of ignorance, but Riddle (and many of his creationist colleagues) seem to maintain a willful ignorance that really approaches stupidity or unassailable stubbornness to accept reality.

Riddle claims to have gone through Ernst Mayr’s entire book, What Evolution Is, and offers up another great cherry-picked quote.

Given the fact of evolution, one would expect the fossils to document a gradual steady change from ancestral forms to the descendants. But this is not what the paleontologist finds. Instead, he or she finds gaps in just about every phyletic series.

Fortunately, in this case, I own the book, so I went and checked the quote. Sure enough, there it is just as attributed. Riddle says that, in the entire book, Mayr could only come up with about half a dozen “alleged” transitional fossils. Riddle says, “That is not evolution. That is supporting that there had to be a creator.”

Wait, what?!

After the above quote from Mayr’s book, the text goes on to explain why fossils are, indeed, rare and says that some fossil lines are incredibly complete. The facing page of the book shows about sixteen transitional fossils leading from reptiles to early mammals. Riddle’s summarization of Mayr’s book is not only misleading, but is a bald-faced lie.

Power question number four is basically an extension of question three. It’s “Where did the dinosaurs come from?” His premise for this question is that he goes to museums and sees dinosaurs… but he’s not seeing “thousands or millions” of transitions that lead up to the dinosaurs. He says…

Why are these transitions not in the museum? How about a thought here? Just a thought. They never existed. If those transitions were readily available, I believe they would be in the museum, but we don’t see them.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that Riddle has never actually read a book about paleontology… or evolution… because if he had, he would have seen plenty of smaller forms all leading up to the larger forms of the dinosaurs. He again makes the statement that “Great claims require real evidence” and follows it up with more cherry picked, out of context quotes from dinosaur books.

Riddle seems to pile more and more ignorance-born absurdities on top of his “rock solid” biblical foundation. He says, of course, that dinosaurs were created on day six according to Genesis.

His conclusion is always that he has a reasonable and rational faith… a logical faith, not a blind faith. He says that, since evolution can’t be defended scientifically, it must be a faith-based belief system with no foundation.

How anyone who claims to understand evolution can say that with a straight face is almost unfathomable to me. Willful ignorance? Outright deceit? Simple stupidity? I don’t know, but the hypocrisy and misinformation that overloads Riddle’s talk is outrageous and inexcusable.

The sad part is that the audiences that hear Riddle’s talk will walk away thinking that the nonsense that he spewed so authoritatively is somehow true. They’ll continue to not understand what the theory of evolution states, continue to think there is no fossil evidence, continue to be ignorant of other biological evidence for evolution, and generally feel that Riddle’s presentation was sensible, logical, factual, and genuine. Talks like Riddle’s spread ignorance like the plague and Answers in Genesis helps carry that plague all over the world.

It’s harmful. It’s contemptible. It’s deceitful.

She and I drove by a church today that frequently has "witty" sayings on their sign. This week, the sign said, "Did you make God smile today?" I pointed it out to my daughter, but she missed it.

"What did it say?" she asked.

"It said, ‘Did you make God smile today?’"

She paused and asked, "How would you know?"

…

Exactly.

After recovery, there was no paralysis and everything was healing well… an amazing recovery.

So after over 8 weeks of constant medical care by a superb team of doctors, surgeons, nurses, and technicians, who gets the credit for the recovery? Here’s a hint. The soundtrack accompanying the video is the song “I Have To Believe” by Rita Springer.

Don’t get me wrong. I have overwhelming sympathy for what the victim had to endure. I can’t even imagine the nightmare scenario of enduring that kind of physical trauma and the succeeding physical therapy. I cringed (and got a little choked up) when the video mentioned that the kids finally got to see their father after he woke up from the coma.

However, I have an overwhelming feeling of disgust for the insensitivity and disregard for the monumentally heroic efforts by all the medical personnel who actually made the recovery possible. I’d guess that perhaps the family thanked the staff in person, but to then create a “tribute” video and make the claim that God did the work? …with no mention at all of the amazing people who actually saved the victim’s life, patched him up, and made his body functional again?

That is hideous, ignorant behavior.

Moonflake answers:

Depends how you got to that point. I don’t think the world would be better off if you banned religion outright. But it would certainly be better if we all became sufficiently advanced in our moral and critical thinking to realise that we did not need religion, and just got on with the business of being better humans.

I think that’s a spot-on answer. Religion shouldn’t have to be banned. In a perfect world, humanity would realize that it’s… well… smoke and mirrors, and could be free to focus on the real world and real people, without using 2,000 year old dogma as an excuse to act badly.

It’s a great vision for the future.

I had added the movie Waiting for Armageddon, a documentary about evangelical Christians who believe the end times are near. The resulting screen led me to add Fall from Grace, a documentary about the Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelps’ vehicle for spreading bigotry and hatred.

The resulting recommendation screen can be seen below. I scanned the results, paused, and laughed out loud when I got to the third movie in the second row (click to embiggen).

Yeah. If I was putting together a list of movies in the "More like Fall from Grace" category, I don’t think Brokeback Mountain would be on it.

I’m fairly certain it’s not a documentary, either.

Some Christians in the United States are frequently lamenting how they are persecuted… how their religious rights are being curtailed… how their freedom to worship is being stripped away… how their religion is prohibited in any public setting. Many Muslims seem to spew outrage over words and pictures they feel disrespect their beliefs… over opposition to their teachings… over perceived persecution or unfair treatment.

Yet, at the same time, these religious people will attempt to push their beliefs into public policy, into education, into government… all the while seemingly completely unaware of their own hypocrisy; not seeing how their adamant proclamations of superiority are exactly the same as the adamant proclamations of competing religious claims.

Why is that? How is it that some religious people seem completely closed off to the very notion that there are competing ideologies? How is it that some religious people will dismiss conflicting ideological claims without even the passing wonder if their own claims could just as easily be dismissed? How is it that one argument can be discarded as absurd when referring to one religion but that same argument can be held in high regard when referring to another? Why does religion seem to generate so much unrest… so much controversy… so much intolerance?

I’ve created a partial list of ideas with my interpretation of each one. It is by no means complete, nor is it absolute. Based on what I’ve seen, heard, read, and experienced, this is simply my understanding about some of the consequences of religious teachings and religious beliefs. Feel free to correct, debate, or add to any and all of my points.

Religion teaches to be satisfied with not understanding.

This is one of the most pervasive problems with religions, in my opinion, and it’s always been a problem. If there is a phenomenon that isn’t understood… for which science has no current answer… the religious answer is “God did it.” Case closed. From the origin of the universe to the intricacies of biological development, “God did it” is a common refrain heard from religious proponents.

It’s not a real answer. It’s the religious way of saying, “I don’t know and I don’t care.” By attributing the cause to an invisible, all-powerful, undetectable entity, religion absolves its adherents from any investigative work… from any intellectual responsibility… from any curiosity.

Religion teaches to not question authority.

Probably every deistic religion teaches its adherents to not question authority, whether that authority be a minister, the bible, the Pope, or God. The bible is true. The Qur’an is true. The Book of Mormon is true. L. Ron Hubbard’s missives about Xenu are true (for the right price, anyway). All these religions make absolute claims on the truth. If these claims are questioned, the questioner is branded a heretic… a non-believer… an enemy of God. Obviously, some religions are more strict about this than others, but the truth claims are still the same.

Question God’s motives when hundreds die in an earthquake and the likely answer is something about how He works in mysterious ways… that He has a plan… that all suffering is for a reason. In other words, it’s God’s will. Don’t question it. The Catholic concept of Papal Infallibility is a perfect example of discouraging the questioning of authority. Both Christian and Muslim religions claim that their holy books are the Word of God. In the case of the Qur’an, the claim is that the words (in their original Arabic) are the exact transcription of Allah’s words to Muhammad. If ever there was a demand to not question authority, that’s it.

The problem is that questioning authority is, in my opinion, necessary for a healthy, honest society… especially when the authority figure is making claims of a questionable nature. That doesn’t mean that every time an authority figures makes a statement, he should be challenged. Questioning the skydiving instructor when he says to pull the cord to open the chute probably isn’t prudent. Questioning the priest who says that 10% of your income has to go to the church because God needs your money… that’s a different matter.

Religion teaches a twisted concept of evidence and logic.

When questioned about the existence of God, a common religious response is something like, “God is all around you” or “God is self-evident.” If pressed further on the issue, the responses become more like, “Just look how beautiful the trees are. That can only be God’s work.”

Another response about claims of Jesus’ divinity is the “Lord, Liar or Lunatic” argument (“Lewis’s Trilemma” originally popularized by C. S. Lewis). Logically, it’s flawed, yet I’ve heard it used multiple times in religious discussions that I’ve had in the past year… with complete sincerity.

These are just two examples of how religion twists the ideas of logic and evidence. “Trees are beautiful” is not evidence. Lewis’s Trilemma is not logical. Most of the apologetic arguments for the existence of God have huge gaps in logic (ontological, cosmological, etc). The fact remains that no actual evidence exists to support the existence of God, yet defenders of religious faith will present heaps of what they claim is evidence… because they don’t seem to understand what evidence really is.

The fallback argument is, of course, that it’s just a matter of having faith… which is no evidence at all.

Religion promotes narcissism and self-righteous superiority.

Narcissism and a self-righteous feeling of superiority are byproducts of any religion that claims to be the only true religion. Teaching adherents that they are special because they alone hold the truth and they alone will be saved by an all-powerful god and that they alone are holy in the eyes of that god is a surefire way to create a feeling of supremacy. Teaching that humans are a special creation of an omnipotent creator who watches over them with love and mercy is a surefire way to generate strong feelings of narcissism… especially if the creator is the “right” creator.

These feelings frequently manifest themselves in politics, where religious politicians cry about being persecuted, all the while attempting to gain special privilege for their own religion of choice despite the unconstitutionality of their end goal. Another good example is Christians claiming that the United States is a “Christian nation” because they feel that their beliefs are somehow special… true as opposed to those other religions… solely worthy of influencing government policies (again, despite the Constitution)… even necessary for the United States to succeed. It’s completely false, but they cling to it because “they’re special.”

The narcissism and feeling of superiority create, maintain, and worsen divisions among people of differing beliefs. “I’m better than you” doesn’t make for strong relationships.

Religion advocates intolerance.

Hand in hand with the previous point is the point that religion advocates intolerance… partly because of the previous point, but also because some religious tenants explicitly promote intolerance. Islam makes the news on a regular basis for this, but Christianity is no slouch, either. From homosexuality to sexism to disbelief, religions have forbidden people for breaking the (ever changing) rules and have condemned, damned, and killed people for doing so. And even though we don’t live in medieval times, most religions still do at least some of those things.

The nature of the major holy books is that they can be read, interpreted, and cherry-picked to back up almost any position imaginable… not just love and kindness, but also slavery, racism, pedophilia, bigotry, discrimination, murder, genocide, and a host of other positions that, without the holy books, would be not only morally reprehensible, but virtually unthinkable (they’re still morally reprehensible, but sadly, all too thinkable). If a religion’s tenants say that unbelievers should be killed or that people who don’t follow the rules will be tortured for all eternity or that women are inferior or that homosexuals are abominations, it doesn’t leave much room for tolerance and kindness.

Those religious people who are tolerant and loving cannot espouse all the teachings of their religion. They must, in order to maintain their faith, cherry pick certain parts of the bible and follow certain parts of the church’s teachings while rationalizing away other parts or ignoring them altogether. Taking religious teachings as a whole would put them in an untenable position.

Religion promotes immorality.

I’ve written about this before but it bears repeating… often. Religion, particularly versions of Christianity, certainly do not promote moral behavior. Sure, Christianity offers the whole “carrot and burning-in-hell-for-eternity stick” scenario for encouraging good behavior (which is morally questionable on its own), but based on Christian principles, you can ignore the carrot for as long as you like and simply ask for forgiveness later… with no consequences. That’s about as far as you can get from encouraging moral behavior… to the point of implicitly condoning immoral behavior.

“Go ahead and do your worst,” Christianity says. “Just ask for forgiveness and place you faith in Jesus later and all will be well.”

Of course, if you don’t ask for forgiveness and place your faith in Jesus, then you get the fiery pit… forever. Interestingly enough, Islam doesn’t teach eternal punishment. There’s a “Hell” if you will, but it’s not eternal. It seems that, in this particular case, Islam is a much more merciful religion than Christianity. In Islam, simply asking for forgiveness doesn’t get you out of the punishment, either, so it lacks Christianity’s flaw in that regard. Of course, that doesn’t free it from its own promotion of immorality, including debasing women and pedophilia.

Religious rules can frequently be irrelevant or immoral in their own ways as well, and if you add multiple interpretations and cherry-picking to the mix, things get even more muddied. Certainly, you can dig out some gems of wisdom and kindness from religious doctrine, but you have to work through mountains of rubbish to find them.

Religion promotes inaction.

Religion promotes inaction by encouraging prayer. It’s as simple as that. Other than possibly creating a calming effect on the person praying, prayer does nothing. “Prayer,” as the saying goes, “is the best way to do nothing and still think you’re helping”… or “The hard work of one does more than the prayers of millions”… or “Nothing fails like prayer.”

Sometimes bumper sticker wisdom says it all.

Religion impedes progress.

Say what you will about the debate on whether religion and science are compatible, the main opponents to scientific research are bible-thumping members of fundamentalist religions. They will deny scientific data, no matter how overwhelming, if it conflicts with their ancient dogma or challenges their ideological loyalties. From the time of Galileo to present day arguments about evolution and global warming an stem cell research, the people on the front lines of denialism are almost exclusively hyper religious.

Evolution versus creationism is probably one of the most publicized debates in this regard. The creationists want their mythology taught in science classes even though it isn’t science by any stretch of the imagination. They’ve tried to couch it in scientific language, calling it “Intelligent Design,” but it’s no more scientific with it’s fancy name. They reject factual data about the age of the universe, the age of the Earth, the age of fossils, the process of evolution, the effects of natural selection, and the unequivocal lineage of humans from ape-like ancestors.

Some of that can be credited toward a belief in a 6,000 year old Earth, but much can be credited to the narcissism addressed earlier. How can a religious believer admit that humans are just the most recent product of the evolutionary process and not a special creation of a loving, caring, all-knowing god? If the holy books are supposed to be true, contradictory facts must be eliminated… either by ignoring them or attempting to discredit them.

Religion is a self-perpetuating hindrance to honest, ethical, and yes, moral living. Despite a religious influence, many people still maintain just such a life… by compartmentalizing their beliefs, cherry-picking which doctrines to follow (“cafeteria Christians”), or simply ignoring doctrines altogether in favor of simply calling themselves “spiritual.” Those who lead a good and moral life do so not because of religious teachings, but because of an innate sense of morality combined with societal norms defining appropriate behavior.

Religion clouds the issue of morality… and many other issues. The disadvantages far outweigh the benefits. The promotion of perpetual ignorance is reason enough for religion to be abandoned. Sadly, that probably won’t happen in my lifetime. Religion doesn’t need the truth. It needs followers.

As Nietzsche said, “Faith [is] not wanting to know what is true.”

Sometimes bumper sticker wisdom says it all.

From the NCSE article:

Both bills were sponsored by Senator Michael Fair (R-District 6), who spearheaded a number of previous antievolution efforts in South Carolina.

Senator Fair needs to give it a rest and stop wasting the taxpayers’ money with his shenanigans.