Religion is the story the tribe tells itself.
Spirituality is God's gift to man. We need a new myth.

It is so strange to me that in the US where state and church are separate, religion is blooming in government, while in Norway, and I've heard England as well, there are state churces and no separation of state and church, yet the politicians do not use their personal religious beliefs to manipulate or coerce.

Magicmary, unlike religions, there is no atheist identity, ergo, there are no "core atheist values." Atheist is simply a label for people who are not theists.

The values you mention bring to mind secular humanism. Maybe this is what you wish to promote. For the record, it is not unusual for an atheist to promote secular humanism.

I agree, in a broad sense, with your direction on morality.

"... in Norway, and I've heard England as well, there are state churces and no separation of state and church, yet the politicians do not use their personal religious beliefs to manipulate or coerce."

I can't speak for Norway, but in the UK politicians have unfortunately started going down the religious-beliefs-on-my-sleeve pathway, led by Tony (will he or won't he convert to Catholicism?) Blair. Happily, the new leader of the Liberal Democrat Party, when asked on a radio interview a couple of days ago, whether he believed in God, said simply, "No." I hope that puts an end to the matter, though I suspect it won't.

Steve, you sound like a "born again Unitarian Universalist" (if there even IS such a thing)! There are some very adamant secular humanists among UU's that swear by the Humanist Manifesto that was written sometime in the 1930's.

While I count myself among the "agnostic, ex-Catholic but still very devoted UU" crowd, I am appalled at how religiosity is practically a pre-condition for admission to the top tiers of public office. That attests to the power that the very militant, rich and powerful Religious Right has been able to inflict on American politics. They will not be silent until the US is practically a Christian theocracy.

Yes, I am a regular church-goer (who'd've thunk it after all the years I strenuously avoided going to ANY church whatsoever because I FIRMLY did NOT believe in any organized religion until I found the UU's!), but I do not wear my faith on my sleeve, nor should anyone else. Faith is and should be a very private matter, and I seem to recall seeing a quote someplace recently that even Jesus believed in the privacy of one's faith. (See, I can't quote Bible chapters and verses, I just recall seeing stuff that others have written and reference that!)

OK, call me a heathen non-believer if you will, but even though I am a Unitarian Universalist and don't read the Bible and don't know it worth beans, still, I do remember just a tiny bit of what we learned in Catholic school 40-some years ago and that the basic message of Jesus still rings true. It's the basic "Golden Rule" - do unto others as you would have them do unto you. As I wouldn't dare go out on to the streets and try to ram my Unitarian Universalism down people's throats (and UU's as a rule wouldn't be caught dead proselytizing anyway - it's kind of like the joke of "what do you get when you cross a UU with a Jehovah's Witness? Someone who knocks at your door for no particular reason!"), so I can't abide people trying to ram their faith down my throat, nor should they be trying to "save" me. "Save" me from, what?

Anyway, this battering down of the "wall of separation" between church and state is completely contrary to what the Founding Fathers envisioned. I'm quite entirely sure that they are rolling in their graves over the increasing merge of state and religion to where you cannot even consider running for public office unless you are an avowed Christian who can prove what congregation you belong to and that you attend regularly and read your Bible and can quote chapter and verse.

In that respect, we are becoming no better than the brutal theocratic regimes in the Middle East that we are supposedly trying to "democratize". What a bunch of hypocrites we must seem to the rest of the world.

Where Judeo-Christians have the "Ten Commandments", Buddhists have the "Five Precepts". Expressed in language similar to that of the Ten Commandments, the Five Precepts are:

Do not kill.
Do not steal.
Do not lie.
Do not engage in harmful sexual behavior.
Do not indulge in intoxication.

The difference is that unlike the Ten Commandments, the Five Precepts are not the "commands" of a "God" whose violation leads to punishment by eternal damnation. The Five Precepts are the teachings of a human being, an Indian monk named Siddhartha Gautama who through his own efforts attained "awakening" and became known as "the Buddha" (literally "one who is awake") some 2500 years ago. The Buddha taught that living in accord with the Five Precepts tends to produce greater well-being for oneself and others, whereas violating them tends to diminish well-being for oneself and others; and he didn't ask his listeners to take this "on faith" but to determine for themselves whether this was true or not.

So, rather than a "faith-based" morality, ordained by a supposed all-powerful supernatural "God", Buddhism offers an empirically-based morality, recommended by a wise and compassionate teacher, who invites everyone to judge from their own experience whether his teachings are sound or not.

"Faith" as that term is used in theistic religions, eg. belief in a supernatural deity whose existence cannot be demonstrated empirically, is not a necessary basis for moral or ethical behavior. Concern for the well-being of sentient beings living in the actual world (the root meaning of the word "secular" is "of the world"), and for how our actions affect them for better or worse, is a sufficient basis for moral or ethical behavior.

And indeed, having "faith" in a supernatural deity without concern for the well-being of sentient beings living in the actual world has often been the basis of atrocities.

Its easy to be an atheist when one reads about things like Islamic pilgrims going to Mecca to throw stones at a bigger rock that represents Satan(instead of teying to live a moral life every day and fighting Satan that way) and slaughtering millions of animals to celebrate the mythic story of Abraham and Isaac(and God's love of torturing his creation for sport).Its a shame to be a muslim or a jew or a christian with these idiot violent traditions. But secularists also have their animal sacrifices(lab research).

So the answer is not the religion of secular humanism. I know secular humanists who are no different from christian nuts--they think humans are great and the universe exists for human use. That is a religious view as childish as believing that a big magic man in the sky tells us that we are the special ones. In fact--it is more understandable coming form a magic man in the sky believer because they say there is a human-like mind in the universe. Secular humanists claim there is no human-like mind in the universe--and yet they believe they are better than other libing things? Who is the absolute judge? It cant be human-and it cant be anything else.

All you have to do is take a philosophy of religion 300 course to learn that the three major branches of religion are
theism, secularism and mysticism. Buddhism is mysticism--and it is the most adult of the three types of religious thought.

Theophany is coming into vogue I hear.

Would our profound electorate have the actual scientific skills required for that, then they would probably be inspired to shut up and keep to themselves. That's too much to ask I suppose.

iv'e become a militant constitutionalist....and i KNOW ! YES- KNOW-SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE(and freedom of speech)-are the two essential ingredients that insure freedom and democracy ! FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY,will not survive without the separation of church and state and the liberty of free speech !the united states!with regard to any foreign policies, should apply..separation of religion and state in their dealings with other countries.....ONLY HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES SHOULD COLOR OUR POLICIES.....NOT RELIGION.

Does anyone really think that USA Incorporated or its annointed candidates for public office give a tinker's damn about what deities or which associated fairy tales are believed in by the general public at home or abroad? It's simply a convenient tool for setting various segments of the peasantry against one another and diverting their attention from the common enemy.

The only true state religion in America is Almighty Capitalism, and there's certainly no separation of the elements or institutions involved in that case.

It just so happens that its high priests have, so far, been much more successful in co-opting some (e.g., fundamentalist "Christians") in support of their cause than others (e.g., fundamentalist "Moslems"). But that says a lot more about practical feasibility and gullibility within their operating environment than about the validity of religion in general or any branch thereof in particular.

Article VI, Section 3 of the Constitution-
"No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States"

Anyone who stands up and announces that their religion makes them qualified to be President (or anything else), should be shouted down as ignorant of the Constitution, and thereby unworthy of running for office.

Religion, like beer and corvettes, sells in America. And when it's not being sold it's being abused. Americans can take anything, real or imagined and turn it into a product to be marketed and sold. It won't be long before America itself becomes a religion. A religion based on consuming. We already have the almighty dollar being donated to malls and shopping centers all across the country. Americans worship buying and buying something is like praying. The more you spend the greater the reward. Just like a catholic would give some money at church in order to get in better with God, so too does the shopper at the mall. The shopper wants to get in better with America. What they buy is supposed to give them something in return. Some kind of recognition or added value in their society. In America when you buy you confirm you are an American. If you want to leave the church of America you will have to vote with your dollars and stop buying. Not easy to do where being poor will soon be a crime.
Hoa binh

I LIKE THE BUMPER STICKER THAT READS"GOD IS TOO BIG TO FIT INSIDE ONE RELIGION" mr.early,you are free to be an atheist.. consider that you could be the flea,that lives on an elephant..the elephant is so big it appears to be the world.the flea is seeing the elephant at all times-yet doesn't realize it.

``The brave Moslem apostate'' is a phony asylum seeker who fabricated her entire life history to become a Dutch citizen and then went on a right wing witchhunt to vilify her own people....

Sorry, that does not sound like an example to emulate...

The hypocritical religious posturing of war-loving presidential candidates is certainly disgusting, but the belief, as magicmary seems to imply, that atheists are on the whole more compassionate and tolerant than religious groups simply doesn't hold up to scrutiny. The horrific abuses of the Communist governments of China and the Soviet Union undoubtedly rival those of the Catholic Church.

Many atheists seem to passively accept the loud-mouthed, self-serving hypocrites who claim to represent Christianity in the public sphere as the true representatives of that faith. In fact, many true Christians have found in their faith a source of courage and caring deep enough to move them to serve jail time for opposing injustices such as the Iraq war (e.g., http://www.stpatricksfour.org), America's training of South American death squads at the School of the Americas (www.SOAW.org), and other such causes.

Opposition to authoritarian and intolerant religion is justified, but the denigration of all religion, based on the despicable acts of its false representatives, is just another form of intolerance.

What ever your viewpoint practise it.
And share with some likeminded people.
Do not impose on those who do not agree.

Why can't people do that?

That is why I respect Buddhism, and thank SecularAnimists quote.

But Buddhist don't follow their doctrine either......

Militant atheists unite! I was once a cowardly agnostic until Stephen Colbert awoke the revolutionary in me by saying that "Agnostics are just athiests without balls." Let's force the Evanzealicals and snakeoil salesmen of all denominations out of politics or TAX the crap out of them. If I have to listen to one more "I love god" speech from a politician, I'm trashing my new flatscreen (which is good for nothing but to make the bullshit bigger and clearer).

I've read through all these comments and I think you're all going to Hell.

Frank Zappa had the idea 20 years ago...to create the Church of American Secular Humanism or C.A.S.H. for short.

If secular humanism is truly a religion, then it should receive the benefits.

Yeah, it makes you want to retch to hear the supplicating blather that comes out of the candidates' mouths when religion is the question. I guess we should know what to expect from these simple-minded, reactionary, non-free-thinkers. To think that many of the Europeans who first came to settle in North America were trying to escape religious persecution (at least that's the story they tell in school) . . . it only took a few hundred years for their descendants to begin ramming their brand of god down everyone's throats. Ironic. Sickening.

Religion has always been a key tool of ruling classes in establishing their rule. In the middle ages it was much more overt, of course, as the class system brutally established itself. The inquistition was used to establish the Spainish state. The "Religious" wars of that period were actually wars of conquest. In the Spainish conquest of the Americas, the priests came in along with the torturers and executioners. The British, and later the U.S., justified their colonial conquests by saying they had to "Christianize" the colonial subjects. (And we'll just hold on to all your economic resources, 'for your own good').

While the corporate media highlights "fundimentalist Islam," the role of U.S. corporations/government in building that very movement is always omitted. In fact, U.S./Britian secret services, working closely with dominant corporate interests, poured gigantic amounts of money, resolurces into bldg the most backward moslem elements in the Arab world in order to use them against progressive forces in those nations. It reached its height in the (U.S. armed, financed, Taiban-led) war in Afganistan that overthrew an ELECTED, SECULAR govevernment, that included many women leaders (and, yes, it did include, as one of the governing coalition partners the Afgan Communist Party).
Our nation has now used religion in order to dramatically change history in that area, against the interests, and expressed wishes, of the people of the region. And, guess what? We're now getting bitten by that snake we created and put there. Frankenstein's monster has turned on his master, or, as Malcolm stated after Kennedy's assasination (and got in all kinds of trouble for, but still meant); the chickens had come home to roost!

These assholes in power now in our nation are every bit as cynical and hypocritical in their use of religion as those vicious, sadistic and brutal state (and religion, openly at that time)warlords of the middle ages. These guys are more clever, and experienced, and much, much more powerful!

The leaders of the American Revolution would be awfully surprised to hear themselves discribed by right-wing fundamentalists today as "men of faith," "active and believing Christians," etc. In their day, most were denounced 'in civil society' as atheists. In fact, most revolutionary leaders, in France, Italy and even Britian, of that day were Dieists. Their revolutionary ideas were that you had to break the hold of corrupt and powerful org'd religious bodies on the political structure of the day. To them, religion was a personal, not a state, issue. The separation of church and state was a clear wall to protect us FROM religion.

Without that wall, which the Bushies, the right, is trying to tear down, we no longer have what we call (although few understand) freedom!

Think about it---- Doesn't it seem weird that you should have to have a name (atheist) for not believing in magic?

I'm sorry that religion becomes an issue in politics, but we live in a country where 85% of the electorate would never consider voting for an atheist for any office, let alone president. There's your religious test for you, damn the constitution.

For most people, I believe their politics informs their religion, although they claim the opposite. People interpret their faith to agree with their political thinking, or else they go find a religion that does agree with them on the issues.

There is a rift among Episcopalians, for example, over whether gays can be vicars. There's not a disagreement over who is the true God; it's a political rift between pro- and anti-gay-rights groups. The difference between Sunnis and Shiites is mostly about economic class; it has become extremely political in Iraq.

For this reason, I feel that most people don't actually hold a faith; they simply cling to a religious tradition out of residual superstition and/or for the social imprimatur of "morality" that relious membership automatically confers. This is why politicians in this country have to play the religion game.

Welcome back to the reality world, Mr. Early. And welcome to my world.

I gave up belief in the god idea over thirty years ago, in my early twenties, though it was not until 1990 that I actually realized I was atheist through and through. To openly self-label that way was to expose myself to certain social risks, including losing my job. Fortunately, those risks have largely come to naught. In 1992 I formally became a secular humanist (I joined the American Humanist Association and later became a Humanist Celebrant), and ever since then I have lived a life of general contentment and peace of mind.

These days, however, I'm move vocal and strident in speaking out against supernaturalism in all its forms, and the faux-piety in the current political arena sickens me to no end. But I'm just an average-type guy living in a small mountain town in northern California, and the extent to which my voice carries is limited, not to mention my meager financial resources.

But still I do what I can, even if it's little more than to write a comment here and there in various blogs in support of people like you. So take heart, Mr. Early. You are definitely not alone in the fight against the theocrats who would burn our constitution and replace it with Biblical-Sharia law. Like you, I have become a "militant atheist"; out of necessity it would appear.

redjeff, philosopher Dan Dennett agrees. In 'Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon', he refers to this as 'believing in belief' and gives several other reasons for it as well. A very worthwhile book. A favourite quote from p303:

'What these people have realised is one of the best secrets of life: let your self go. If you can approach the world's complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only just scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things. Keeping that awestruck vision of the world ready to hand while dealing with the demands of daily living is no easy exercise, but it is definitely worth the effort, for if you can stay centered, and engaged, you will find the hard choices easier, the right words will come to you when you need them, and you will indeed be a better person. That, I propose, it the secret to spirituality and it has nothing at all to do with believing in an immortal soul, or in anything supernatural.'

I tip my hat to Steve Early for his pioneering courage.

His revelation that his Atheism is a religion is a great step forward, and I hope more secular humanists take the leap!

I think Forrest Prince's comment regarding that he has found peace of mind and "general contentment" through the act of proclaiming his beliefs, in a public sort of fashion, is something for all secular humanists and believers in science to consider.

ThoughtSharman - if you are "not theist" then what exactly are you?

Valis:
have you ever read the Perennial Philosophy by Huxley?

LOL, nothing better to make Common Dreams turn into Free Republic than a venomous, spiteful little little piece on 'my belief system is superior'. All of you "militant" atheists (ROFL, you understand that being militant for a belief system is stupid, so you're militant about it, that's rich) coming out sound like the rich-wingers and their reverse 'Christianity' coming to save the day.

Oh, and by the way, I believe that MY believe system is the correct one. Fancy that. I'm just not so arrogant to KNOW that I'm right. I've not heard any good evidence against a universal consciousness, just a bunch of people having a superiority-party whilst beating up the oh-so convenient straw man produced for you by the 'religious' right.

Just come on out and call yourselves 'Evangelical Atheists' and proclaim that you're here to save me from the heathen beliefs I've been laboring under.

Just don't take it personally when I don't fall down all over myself in an effort to explain away the numerous HIHGLY improbable 'coincidences' I've seen in my life and soil myself with excitement as I embrace the belief that the consciousness I possess is just a 'trick of the chemistry'.

Yes, I've had this debate before, and no, atheism (which I assume (correctly) in the general sense to mean a belief in science) doesn't hold all the answers. I exist, my consciousness is not a trick of the chemistry, numerous examples in both my life and documented experiences of other people suggest this, but in your (atheist) defense, it CAN be explained away as a 'hallucination'... That is, if you're willing to accept a statistically impossible congruence of statistical improbabilities.

You know, the defining characteristic of my personal religion is that I don't take my beliefs for granted. I'm not keen to some special insight, and I won't act as such. Everything I believe is based on 1) the fact that I have a consciousness, 2) the strong belief that others have a consciousness and 3) science.

All of you who would say that science and religion are at some kind of odds are the same who think that the Democrats and Republicans are two opposites balancing things out. You're seeing false dichotomies. Just as with the D and R parties, the differences between science and religion disappear when you get to the 'meat' of the matter. To offer a modern analogy, we'll call it the 'search for the operating system' of the universe, and the application of the results of said search. That's what it is, but I can offer you many MANY examples of BOTH being pulled away from their true purpose in order to serve some selfish means.

Look at yourselves, and look at your posts. The arrogant assumption of your 'correctness' based on such evidence as 'these guys say there is a God, these guys lie all the time and don't follow their own rules, therefore there is no god' is ABOVE you. I know this, I read this forum daily. Apply the standards you hold others to against yourselves and see that you've become what you're fighting against.

either you know, one way or the other, or you don't know or are incertain.

If you know, you probably have no proof whatsoever as the argument seems to have continued unabated since the dawn of consciousness. Or your proof is some sort of internal certitude acquired by some means.

so if you claim to know for a certainty, one way or the other, chances of appearing like a militant lunatic are greatly increased.

"By their fruits yea shall know them." 2000 years of genocide, torture, nightmare, and psychosis. I would have thought that was quite enough. Wouldn't you?

I just love it when White Americans cut each other up over "Religion" and "Theology", almost as good as Race. Give it a rest folks. Religion is poison. It is the greatest single bar to direct spiritual experience we know.

You don't need religion to be an ethical humane human. Just a heart that feels and eyes to see the pain in those around you - matched to a willingness to oppose Abomination with your body. "Got Heart?"

2000 YEARS of Xrstianity in all its genocidal forms is in DIRECT OPPOSITION to that. THEY ARE THE MASTER. THEY TELL YOU WHAT TO THINK, WHAT TO FEEL, WHAT TO DO. Very Absolute, very Patriarchal, very Violent, very Psychotic, very Feudalistic, very American.

The flat-earth knuckle-walking idiots have received the direct Truth from the Creator of the Universe. That TRUTH is therefore applicable on all the 400 billion stars in our local neighborhood and the 40 billion galaxies in the material universe which is less than 5% of All that must be there for our Universe to operate as it does. That means that 95+% of everything in our Universe is called Dark Matter, 'cause we don't know what it is. Wanna call that Jahweh? That is what we label anything we don't yet understand, isn't it?

Besides, the mind of the Believer always stagnates. They are turned into button-sorters by what they think they "KNOW", e.g. THERE IS NO NEW DATA - EVER. Fixed, granular Absolutes in a Universe that moves by itself. Formula for disaster.

Isaac Asimov, Nightfall, "I believe nothing important has yet been said or discovered."

Abajabba Abajabba Abajabba

Peace.

treat others as you would like to be treated yourself is all you need to know someone said at some point in time.

of course if you like it when someone breaks a club over your head you will find a difference of opinion. . .

and of course you will be required to think perhaps deeply about personal behavior and the subtle manifestations of what you do and what might be done to you. . .

guess there's still trouble ahead.

As an 'atheist', I feel exactly the same way as Mr. Early. What is most frustrating in talking with 'theists' is the point brought up several times that somehow 'atheists' need a theism to 'explain' themselves somehow. The point, stated numerous times, that a word like 'atheist' would not exist without theists seems to be entirely lost on many 'true believers' in whatever supernaturalism or personality cult they subscribe to. Since when were mortality and not knowing threats to our integral identities? Do plants worry about it, or just evolve toward the light? I think all religions positing knowledge of things inscrutable to the human application of testing should be junked in the dirt along with the direction we're all going sooner or later. What we need is more equality of choices and outcomes so that less people feel the need to find 'redemption' in the 'afterlife'.

"Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try, no hell below us, above us only sky, Imagine all the people living for today, Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too, Imagine all the people, living life in peace." - John Lennon

Of course imagining/realizing that there's no heaven or hell, or god, or that nations and religions are psychological creations forces you to come to face to face with the everyday power and class relations of a society that forces you to live in the box that you can afford, live by the rules of status and hierarchy meted out through corporate price controls, centrally planned inequality, and fight for a place in the jungle at the bottom of 'the global labor market'. It would force you to come to grips with the Pharaonic logic of building buildings to hold the 'unclean' down and giving them drugs (called religion) to calm them down that still operates through our capitalist elaboration of Athenian democracy that was built on the backs of slaves and colonial occupations. It would force people to come to grips with the all-too-human 'holy scriptures' which for all we know weren't even accurate accounts of some poor guy fed up with the bullshit. After all, modern day Christianity has never reconciled itself to the fact that perhaps half of early christianity did not believe in Jesus's divinity. 'God' forbid.

"Aint it funny how the factory doors close
Round the time that the school doors close
Round the time that the doors of the jail cells
Open up to greet you like the reaper."
-Rage Against the Machine
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/r/rage+against+the+machine/ashes+in+the+fall_20113418.html

Bottom line: Religion and politics should not intermingle. Politicians use religion to get elected because they think the people want elected officials who are God fearing. Meanwhile, I doubt the people really care about whether or not the people they elect pray every night before going to bed, since most of them don't do it either.

I never believe any of the candidates when they talk about their respective faiths. I think when we see them going to church, they're merely going through the motions. It's a photo-op, that they think will help them get elected. They're like high school overachievers who volunteer at a soup kitchen here and there in hopes that it will help them get into a good college.

How many Americans actually go to their place of worship regularly? Why should we expect our public servants to be better than us in that regard? That being said, I really don't think most Americans care.

Btw, I grew up Catholic but don't currently practice any religion, although I do BELIEVE in a higher power. I don't KNOW one exists.

Which means I'm a demonic headbangin' heathen to the fanatics, and a weak-minded moron who's helping inject arsenic into all that is to the "militant atheists."

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Christianity has it's dungeon, as does Islam, Judaism, and every other faith. None of them are inherently evil either. Religion isn't a poison. It's like fire. It can burn, but it can also keep you warm.

I went through an anti-religion phase in my youth. It was due to the hypocrisy I witnessed as well as the fanaticism. Growing up with a bunch of Jehovah's Witnesses really showed me how religion can manipulate people and given them a sense of exceptionalism. And I still think the JW's are rather cultish as are the Mormons.

But at the same time, I can't bring myself to go torch a church or walk around with an inverted crucifix.

You can rail all you want to about the evils of certain faiths. But does it really do any good? What positive social change ever came out of that?

As far as whether or not there's a God. I don't know. None of us do. So what's the point in debating it? It cannot be proven either way. It seems as if all the people who try to prove or disprove have some sort of larger agenda.

I think hate and greed poison everything. Not religion or a lack thereof.

JudeoChristianity is a "cosmic reform movement" that since its beginning has tried to replace nature (context) with a set of delusionary symbols (text, "the good book") for the sake of controlling one's own population and feeling powerful-good while conquering all the rest. Before that, all around that in time and space, were the "pagan" (meaning, nature-based) religions that simply worked season and year by season and year to maintain human harmony with the natural world; and the most advanced ones (Minoan Crete for example, our longest continuous period of peace and progress ON RECORD), noticing the complementarities between Sun and Moon, made those a basis for equality between/among the genders, from their calendar to their incredibly meaningful ceremonial life. Result: a world that both worked and made genuine progress; not a utopia, but the result of carefully-maintained human bonds among different groups. JudeoChristianity never worked, anywhere, and it never will (highest urban crime rate in the world? VATICAN CITY), the more its "believers" know this the more they "believe" (see what I mean?)---and above all, JudeoChristianity is a TYPE OF religion, not a SYNONYM for it. Start getting this basic distinction right (as the media are forbidden to do, it's part of limiting your choices), and you immediately see it for what it is. A vicious, vapid argument for the end of the world because "believers" don't like it as it is....http://ancientgreece-earlyamerica.com

that's not entirely true about "none of us do." You can speak for yourself, but of course you would not be able to entirely divine what goeth on in the thoughts, consciousnesses, or beings of others or if it is reality or unreality. Without being somewhat subjective about someone else.

you wouldn't wish that any more than others would speak for you. . .

and some would not think it entirely necessary to proclaim their innermost realities on the street because of what may be or may not be or what is or isn't. Because what that is it just is, simply. The fact that someone feels that it isn't is telling.

One way or the other.

miftin December 21st, 2007 8:29 pm

"I've read through all these comments and I think you're all going to Hell."

But the good news is that it couldn't possibly be any worse than the Hell we're living in right now.

Gail,

that would depend on how you interpret it. It has always been as horrible as it is, and it has always never been as horrible.

Acting on it, and the current predicament, however, is another matter.

"JudeoChristianity is a "cosmic reform movement" that since its beginning has tried to replace nature (context) with a set of delusionary symbols (text, "the good book") for the sake of controlling one's own population and feeling powerful-good while conquering all the rest. Before that, all around that in time and space, were the "pagan" (meaning, nature-based) religions that simply worked season and year by season and year to maintain human harmony with the natural world; and the most advanced ones (Minoan Crete for example, our longest continuous period of peace and progress ON RECORD), noticing the complementarities between Sun and Moon, made those a basis for equality between/among the genders, from their calendar to their incredibly meaningful ceremonial life. Result: a world that both worked and made genuine progress; not a utopia, but the result of carefully-maintained human bonds among different groups. JudeoChristianity never worked, anywhere, and it never will (highest urban crime rate in the world? VATICAN CITY), the more its "believers" know this the more they "believe" (see what I mean?)—and above all, JudeoChristianity is a TYPE OF religion, not a SYNONYM for it. Start getting this basic distinction right (as the media are forbidden to do, it's part of limiting your choices), and you immediately see it for what it is. A vicious, vapid argument for the end of the world because "believers" don't like it as it is….http://ancientgreece-earlyamerica.com"

So we all need to become pagans or Buddhists or whatever. Ok.

Religon's not going to save the world, but it's not going to destroy it either.

*sigh*

there's no sighin' in discussion blogs, charlie brown.

drat. :(

lucy pulled the ball away again.

I read about half the posts here, lots of clued in thinking going on. I have just this to note that seems to have gone over some people heads regarding communism. Marx's communism was to be a workers democracy. When common people buy into communism that's what they think it will be about. But just like democracy here has been fascism for the longest, without even the notice of the bunch of consumers Americans are, the democracy part got tossed out by the fascist oligarchy.

Democracy literally means The Peoples Strength. BushCo wants you all to be real strong consumers and very strengthily ignorant. If you succeed in strong ignorance of policy by way of consumerism you will be easier to dominate.

Whatever your strength apart from political sensibility, mass weapon making for instance, pollution, sexuality, BushCo will drive you toward it hard. Alot of people in these here United States are strongly religious.

Which promotes big government as the traitorous Jesus said pay your taxes. Give unto Caesar what's Caesars.

He also said "He who has will be given more and have an abundance, he who does not have, even what he has will be taken..."

One more big religion Jesus quote "You may presume I am here to bring peace, I am not but the sword."

Jesus faked his death by the way ala Machiavelli. Only the Youngs Literal Translation searchable at http://Biblegateway.com reveals what Jesus was really about.

Returning to my point, no matter what the political strength of the day is, it will be hijacked by financial dominance. An end of cash as a means of control and transaction NEEDS to occur for any other reign to advance.

Let sensibility reign, vote on law, vote for National Referendum at: http://ni4d.org

Then pass laws securing a calorie based rather than financial economy.

All replies are invited to rocyahsoul@yahoo.com

Thanks,
Dan