Organization promoting religious freedom plans to deploy atheist billboards

It's not that interesting of an article, but there's one quote in there that serves to illustrate the complete inability for some believers to grasp the concept of nonbelief. I point this out often, because many people don'tunderstand the chronic disconnect between atheism and the religious.

While Im not happy about these billboards, I am certain people still, when they look deep down in their soul and in their heart, find a spark, Bishop Jaime Soto, of Sacramentos Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, told KTXL-TV . They believe in a higher power.

Nope, they don't. If they did, they would call themselves agnostics.

An agnostic is not an atheist. An agnostic is unsure and keeps an open mind.

But one cannot behave as an agnostic. He needs to behave as either an atheist or believer.

Believers are not sure either. If they were they would not believe. They would KNOW. So believers are agnostics who behave as if they knew.

As to believing in humans; after all the horrors committed by humans in the last century how can anyone believe in humans???

So What?

You believe what you believe. Don't try to force it on me. See, wasn't that easy?

Happy Post Turkey day....

Who are you responding to? Did your brain somehow turn my comment into a statement on the efficacy of billboard advertisements? You should see a specialist about that.

The comments here are being overrun by crabs ...

Hal,

Did you see the first sentence... " So What? "

I guess it's a much better deal than having our nativity billboards and scenes torn down every year. Billboards are fine with me. Everything I believe is personal and has nothing to do with anyone else.

#1 - Billboards; No problem.

#2 - Given the religious rights choke hold on the GOP and conservatives, with their hateful brand of Christianity, I don't blame anyone for blowing off religion.

#3 - The left is no better. The so-called "free-thinkers" have embedded themselves within the liberal and democratic party and their mindless hate is no better than the rights.

The sponsors evidently think so; or they would not waste their money.

I guess that explains why for every atheist billboard there are probably 1,000 religious ones.

Our cause? In your mind, what might that be? In my mind, it is to encourage critical thinking. Do you really think that atheist billboards are causing people to not think more critically?

Those who are FOR something have more to say than others who are AGAINST.

Uhhh ... okay. Atheists areFOR rational thinking, so what's your point? You think that religious billboards never imply being AGAINST non-belief? We can do this all day long.

FOR? FOR? Where is the "for?" What is rational about these?

Do you recall Nietzsche's "rational ad?"

"G0d is dead!"

But G0d countered with His ad: "Nietzsche is dead!"

How can you "believe in humanity" after all their hundreds of millions murdered in the 20th century alone by atheistic Fascists, Communists and byMuslims?

I include Muslims because, while ostensibly religious, that religion is more of a cult. True religions believe G0d's greatest desire to be one about behavior;for people to treat each other with kindness, aka the Golden Rule. The greatestrule in Islam is not of behavior but of belief; that everyone should be either a Muislim, dead, or subservient.

Thanks for helping me make my point that atheists are FOR rational thinking. Religion, on the other hand, not so much.

RATIONAL THINKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Right Mike, because the only way make life truly enjoyable is to throw your conscience out the window. I suppose you are the type of guy who, if it weren't for you belief in god, would make it a point to rape at least one person per day, because that would be enjoyable?

Kind of funny stating with such assuredness that the USA will fail if all of its citizens dont follow the One God, (Christian one of course), since Gibbon in his Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire back in 1776 was equally sure that a large part of the blame for the destruction of that much larger, longer lasting civilization was due to the influx of Christion beliefs playing an ever bigger role in the lives of the Roman people.

I guess its true, Where you stand depends on Where you sit. Just saying.

It is done out of spite, and hatred, with the sole purpose of ridding this country of any mention of a God in public, by anybody.

That's because you are a well knownparanoid conspiracy theorist. I suppose it has never occurred to you that, if that were actually true, there would a ton of atheists physically attacking religious people simply because they are religious. What's it like living in that head of yours?

Hal in all seriousness how then did you interpret that quote, if different from my interpretation?

It's very simple: this god you devote so much passion to shows exactly the same amount of love for you as it would if it did not exist at all. If it exists, it clearly doesn't give two shits about you now, so it's not going to give two shits about you after you are dead. This god that you think exists, won't even lend a hand to the millions of starving children throughout the planet, why on earth would it care if you believe in it? Your religion tells you to love this god even more than you love your spouse, or your parents, or your children, yet it clearly doesn't give a shit about anybody.

It's sad that you have to resort to such a tired and unfoundedargument. Like somehow the Golden Rule only applies to people who believe in fairy tales, and religion is not fully responsible for millions of deaths throughout history. Even in modern wars not instigated by religion, when religion gets involved it's never to bring about a peaceful end to the war, it's used to embolden soldiers to be brave and take risks with the expectation of finally meeting their loving creator. Religion is a dangerous tool to be used on the weak minded.

So do you SEE atheists being physically aggressive? Do youSEE people getting sniped as they walk out of churches. What possible evidence do you have of atheist hatred towards religious people? Hate is a strong word, and your cavalier usage of it in relation to atheists is beyond offensive.

Put it this way - I happen to hate lima beans, but Idon't hate peoplewholove lima beans. If someone who loves lima beans has the poor judgment to hate me because I reject lima beans, I still don't hate them, but I certainly feel sorry for them. Now substitute these tangible lima beans, that clearly exist, with something (ie god) that shows absolutely no evidence of existing, and my point is infinitely more valid.

Then you obviously have never bothered to have a conversation with the vast majority of atheists.

Now you are implying that atheists are comparable to Nazis - is that what Jesus (the most notorious socialist/communist in history) teaches you? Incidentally, the vast majority of atheists don't even talk about being atheists - they are just normal people that you bump into day in and day out without ever knowing their religious affiliation. I came across a good example of this recently, when I read that Dean Moriarity wrote that he is an atheist. J4T is an atheist. You are implying that eitherwe are allinherently evil, or that by some strange anomaly three "exceptions to the rule" ended up joining the same forum, while no atheists that meet your criteria for a typical atheist did. What are the odds?

I don't know what you are talking about. Atheists caused millions more dead than religions; even including the Crusades and Inquisition (Muslims excepted).

Judeo-Christian religions inveigh against war. "You shall not murder." (Gen. 9, Exod. 20, Deut. 5)People who do so are violating their religion.

Please provide evidence of a single war that was fought solelyin order to promote non-belief in gods. Religion has inspired countless wars throughout history to destroy others solely because of their opponents' religious beliefs. The atheists you are alluding to were interested in wiping out religion because religion represented a threat to their power as dictators. In fact, it isn't uncommon to see laws prohibiting the gathering of individuals for any reason at all within dictatorships - which would include a gathering of atheists. No atheist is going tosaythat it's impossible to be both evil and atheist - it's just incredibly unlikely for atheism to be inspiring wars solely for the sake of promoting nonbelief in gods.

Please provide evidence of a single war that was fought solelyin order to promote non-belief in gods.

Notwithstandingyour request being narrowly drawn, and self serving,I will oblige.

"We are fighting against the most ancient curse that humanity has brought upon itself. Against the so-called Ten Commandments we are fighting." (Hitler, in conversation with Hermann Rauschning; cited in Rauchning's preface to Armin Robinson's ed., "The Ten Commandments, Pgs. ix-xiii. Hitler told Rauschning that his mission in life was to destroy the "tyrannical G0d of the Jews," and His "life-denying Ten Commandments.)

"The Council of Trent teaches that the Ten Commandments are obligatory for Christians and that the justified man is still bound to keep them."(Catholic Catechism: 2068)

The Hitler youth had a song: Pope and rabbi shall be no more. We want to be pagans once again. No more creeping to churches. We are the joyous Hitler Youth. We do not need any Christian virtues. Our leader, Adolph Hitler, is our savior. This was fulfillment of the idea expressed in 1936 by the Nazi supreme group leader Shultz:

"We cannot tolerate that another organization is established alongside of us that has a different spirit than ours. We must crush it. National Socialism in all earnestness says: '-- I am the lord your god; you shall have no other gods before me...--'" (1936 speech by Nazi Supreme Group Leader Schultz at a meeting of the National Socialist Confederation for Students)

End quotes!

Back to your request: It is not necessary to show that atheists"fought solelyin order to promote non-belief in gods." It is sufficient to show that atheists committed great evils. Hitler, while born Catholic, believed that he was a god not to be questioned as shown above. That was his interpretation of "fuhrer." He murdered millions of Catholics, including clergy, in addition to the six million Jews.

But between Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, all atheists,they murdered upwards of100 million.

dailymail.co.uk...

And you still think belief in humanity beats belief in G0d?

It is absurd to assert that all atheists are evil. But many evil people are atheists as I showed above by citing the 100 million murdered by Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.

But it is a truism that most atheists are intolerant of religious people and roll their eyes (like you) when confronting such. Why else would they put billboards up?

Were any of the last several Republican presidents and candidates, Reagan, the Bushes, McCain or Romney of the "Religious right" whatever that is?

It is absurd to assert that all atheists are evil. But many evil people are atheists as I showed above by citing the 100 million murdered by Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.

Hey Captain Obvious, while you are restating the obvious, please include the other relevant part of such abanal statement- many evil people are religionists too!

Your commentary is glaringly self serving. Again, we can do this all day long - you making self serving statements that are simply half-truths, me responding with the other half of the truth than makes your comment meaningless. It's disgusting the lengths that religionists go to try anddefine non-belief in their fairy talesasa marker for evil behavior.

You are a never-ending stream of ignorance. All you have done is cherry picked the few statements out of thousands of historical statements made by Hitler that happen to support your logic. If you consider the entire philosophy of Hitler, and the fact that he came from a religious upbringing himself, there would be no doubt what his goals were - whichwas complete, autonomous control over his dictatorship. This includes stamping out any influences that may argue against his policies. If a mass of atheists were to have formed in Hitler's Germany, and those atheists were caught plotting a revolution against his tyranny, they would have been executed on the spot and you know it. His rule was not based on the promotion of atheism. Claiming it was is as disingenuous as claiming that his tyranny was the result of his eye color, and therefore everyone with that color eyes is inherently evil.

Ick .... but I'm happy that you find pleasure in them. So long as you don't use your passion for lima beans to justify denial of basic human rights to those who don't like lima beans, I think we'll get along fine.

Your attempt at moral relativism is like pissing up a rope.

Show me where religious Jews and Christians murdered 100 million. If you say 100,000 that is a lot but it would be just one tenth of onepercent of what your atheist friends have perpetrated.

All you have done is cherry picked the few statements out of thousands of historical statements made by Hitler that happen to support your logic.

You will resort even to nonsense to justify yourself. Your comment is like dismissing all the quotations ever presented from famous people because they are just a few of thousands.

Since you want further proof that Hitler was anti-religious, I offer the Nuremberg trials:

the Nazis; How Hitler's Forces Planned To Destroy German Christianity

By JOE SHARKEY
Published: January 13, 2002

nytimes...

THE chilling testimony of crimes against humanity by the Nazi regime in Hitler's Germany have been on the historical record since the Nuremberg war-crimes trials of 1945 and 1946. But any criminal prosecution, and especially one as mammoth as the case against Nazi Germany, consists of far more than public testimony in court. The Nuremberg trials were also built on many millions of pages of supporting evidence: documents, summaries, notes and memos collected by investigators.

One of the leading United States investigators at Nuremberg, Gen. William J. Donovan -- Wild Bill Donovan of the O.S.S., the C.I.A.'s precursor -- collected and cataloged trial evidence in 148 bound volumes of personal papers that were stored after his death in 1959 at Cornell University. In 1999, Julie Seltzer Mandel, a law student from Rutgers University whose grandmother survived the Auschwitz death camp, read them. Under the Nuremberg Project, a collaboration between Rutgers and Cornell, she has edited the collection for publication on the Internet.

The first installment, published last week on the Web site of the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion ( www.camlaw.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion ), includes a 108-page outline prepared by O.S.S. investigators to aid Nuremberg prosecutors. The outline, ''The Persecution of the Christian Churches,'' summarizes the Nazi plan to subvert and destroy German Christianity, which it calls ''an integral part of the National Socialist scheme of world conquest.''

Verbatim excerpts from the outline would require extensive explanations. Instead, the outline is summarized below. JOE SHARKEY

In the 1920's, as they battled for power, the Nazis realized that the churches in overwhelmingly Christian Germany needed to be neutralized before they would get anywhere. Two-thirds of German Christians were Protestants, belonging to one of 28 regional factions of the German Evangelical Church. Most of the rest were Roman Catholics. On one level, the Nazis saw an advantage. In tumultuous post-World War I Germany, the Christian churches ''had long been associated with conservative ways of thought, which meant that they tended to agree with the National Socialists in their authoritarianism, their attacks on Socialism and Communism, and in their campaign against the Versailles treaty'' that had ended World War I with a bitterly resentful Germany.

But there was a dilemma for Hitler. While conservatives, the Christian churches ''could not be reconciled with the principle of racism, with a foreign policy of unlimited aggressive warfare, or with a domestic policy involving the complete subservience of Church to State.'' Given that these were the fundamental underpinnings of the Nazi regime, ''conflict was inevitable,'' the summary states. It came, as Nazi power surged in the late 1920's toward national domination in the early 30's.

According to Baldur von Schirach, the Nazi leader of the German youth corps that would later be known as the Hitler Youth, ''the destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognized as a purpose of the National Socialist movement'' from the beginnin g, though ''considerations of expedience made it impossible'' for the movement to adopt this radical stance officially until it had consolidated power, the outline says.

Attracted by the strategic value inherent in the churches' ''historic mission of conservative social discipline,'' the Nazis simply lied and made deals with the churches while planning a ''slow and cautious policy of gradual encroachment'' to eliminate Christianity.

The prosecution investigators describe this as a criminal conspiracy. ''This general plan had been established even before the rise of the Nazis to power,'' the outline says. ''It apparently came out of discussions among an inner circle'' comprised of Hitler himself, other top Nazi leaders including the propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, and a collection of party enforcers and veteran beer-hall agitators.

The regional branches of the German Evangelical Church, the main Protestant body, were often administered and financed through governmental agencies. The Nazis saw a distinct advantage in having Protestant churches ''whose supreme administrative organs were located within the borders of Germany,'' the outline says. This facilitated plans ''to capture and use the church organization for their own purposes'' and ''to secure the elimination of Christian influences in the Evangelical Church by legal or quasi legal means.''

The Roman Catholic Church, centrally administered from Rome, posed a different problem for the Nazis, whose relationship with that church in the 1920's had been bitter. In 1933, when Germany was under Hitler's total control, the Nazis made ''unmistakable overtures'' to the Christian churches in general, and to Catholics in particular.

Having already witnessed fairly smooth relations after the 1929 Lantern treaty between Mussolini's fascist regime and the church in Italy, many German Catholics ''accepted the Nazi proposition'' of peaceful coexistence. In July 1933, a Concordat was signed between the Reich and the Holy See.

''For the first time since the Middle Ages, the Reich itself had entered into an agreement with the Roman Catholic Church,'' the outline says. ''Moreover, the new treaty was apparently entirely to the advantage of the church. In return for the retreat of German Catholicism from the political scene, the church was guaranteed, by international treaty, freedom for Catholic organizations [and] maintenance of denominational schools and youth education.''

All Hitler seemed to demand in return was ''a pledge of loyalty by the clergy to the Reich government and a promise that Catholic religious instruction would emphasize the patriotic duties of the Christian citizen.'' This posed no big problem for the church, the outline asserts. ''Since it had always been the practice of the Catholic Church to abide by established governments and to promote patriotic convictions among the faithful, these stipulations of the Concordat were no more than legalizations of an existing custom. The Concordat was hailed by church and state authorities as marking the beginning of a close and fruitful collaboration.''

Of course, the churches stayed in Hitler's good graces for only as long as the Nazis considered their cooperation expedient. Soon after Hitler assumed dictatorial powers, ''relations between the Nazi state and the church became progressively worse,'' the outline says. The Nazis ''took advantage of their subsequently increasing strength to violate every one of the Concordat's provisions.''

In 1937, Pope Pius XI denounced Nazi treachery in an encyclical that accused Hitler of ''a war of extermination'' against the church. The battle had been joined on some fronts. Nazi street mobs, often in the company of the Gestapo, routinely stormed offices in Protestant and Catholic churches where clergymen were seen as lax in their support of the regime.

The dissident pastor Martin Niemoller spoke openly now against state control of the Protestant churches. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1937 for using his pulpit for ''underhand attacks on state and party.'' When a judge acquitted him, ''on leaving court he was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp where he remained until the end of the war,'' says the outline.

Still, in a society where the entire Jewish population was being automatically condemned without public protest, care was taken to manipulate public perceptions about clergymen who fell into Nazi disfavor. ''The Catholic Church need not imagine that we are going to create martyrs,'' Robert Wagner, the Nazi Gauleiter of Baden, said in a speech, according to the O.S.S. study. ''We shall not give the church that satisfaction. She shall have not martyrs, but criminals.''

But once they had total power and set off to launch a world war, the Nazis made no secret of what lay in store for Christian clergymen who expressed dissent.

In Munich, Nazi street gangs and a Gestapo squad attacked the residence of the Roman Catholic cardinal. ''A hail of stones was directed against the windows, while the men shouted, 'Take the rotten traitor to Dachau!' '' the outline says, adding: ''After 1937, German Catholic bishops gave up all attempts to print'' their pastoral letters publicly and instead ''had them merely read from the pulpits.''

Then the letters themselves were confiscated.

''In many churches, the confiscation took place during Mass by the police snatching the letter out of the hands of the priests as they were in the act of reading it.''

Later the same year, dissident Protestant churches joined in a manifesto protesting Nazi tactics. In response, the Nazis arrested 700 Protestant pastors.

Objectionable statements made by the clergy would no longer be prosecuted in the courts, the Nazis said. Statements ''injurious to the State would be ruthlessly punished by 'protective custody,' that is, the concentration camp,'' the outline says.

&&&&&&&&

If you want chapter and verse go here:

THE NAZI PERSECUTION OF RELIGION AS A WAR CRIME: THE OSSS RESPONSE

WITHIN THE NUREMBERG TRIALS PROCESS

Claire Hulme

*

and Dr. Michael Salter

True or false Len - pick any of thehandful ofatheistic murderousdictators in history and honestly answer this question: If an organized mass of atheist citizenswere to form under that ruler, and that organization were to challenge anything about the secular governance of that ruler, they would be enslaved alongside any organized religious mass who would dare to try the same thing. You are attributing horrible acts of evil people solely to the single belief that there are no gods, which is bullshit of the highest order. Hitler, Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot were concerned about threats to their rule by anorganized citizenry,and the most prominent organizations of the time period were religiously affiliated.

Here we go again - you are forging an unbreakable bond between Hitler's evil doings and the religious beliefs he held at one time in his life. If I played by your sick rules, then I couldposit that Hitler's evil doings are the product of his Catholic upbringing. Using your logic, I can affirm that had Hitler not been exposed to Catholicism in his formative years, then he would have never matured into the monster that he turned into. Of course, I would never make stupid claims like that, but you seem to be drowning in that kind of ignorance.

You know what I'd like to see is what do Atheist believe in? I'm not talking about God, but tell me, what do they believe in?

What set of rules to themselves do they live by? What ideas do they have for children? What teachings, so to speak, do they project onto society to better mankind? What are some of the good things Hal you can say about Atheist that you feel are important to making this world a better place?

Now in letting us know what they are, leave Christianity, a belief or non-belief in God out of the answers to the questions I've asked.

Don't use "Don't believe in God, Christianity, faith, religious wars or any of those things". What do Atheist have to offer this world to make it a better place leaving all of the above out of the answer?

There is one thing that atheists believe in: there are no gods. Why is that so hard to understand? Anyone who is unsure about that premise is not an atheist. There is not another single premise that atheists unanimously share. Stop trying to make us into something bigger than what we are. Not believing in gods doesn't mean that you are obligated to believe in anything else. If a certain percentage of us believe that democrats are more responsible than republicans at governing, it has nothing to do with atheism. If one of us makes it their life's ambition to give away every penny in their savings to benefit the poor, it doesn't mean the rest of us are obligated to do the same. In the same respect, if one uses their power to murder millions of citizens, it has nothing to do with the single, simple belief that lies inherent to their being - that there are no gods.

You are going down the same road as Len with your assumptions that atheism itself inevitably leads to anything else. It is that false assumption that has resulted in our being the most hated demographic in humanity.

If someone wants to make the world a better place, their actions shouldn't have anything to do with a belief or nonbelief in somethingso obscure as to beimpossible to prove one way or the other - ie the existence of gods. God is an irrelevant concept to the idea of being good. If that were true, then there would never have been any such thing as a priest who rapes a child.

So in other words you are just saying Atheist don't believe in God and that's all they want to say. I could understand, but some evidently want everyone else to have their same lack of faith in a God and want to silence those who don't feel the same way.

It's like those who are tolerant of anyone who agrees with them. To each his own. As everything in this world in the end is an individual thing, I wouldn't concern myself if I were you with those that don't feel the same way as you do.

I don't think priest are the only ones who rape children, so that is a poor argument to use in my opinion. Just like Len used all the monsters who were professed Atheist who have killed millions, you can blame them for giving Atheist a bad rap, not the Christians.

We know there have been and are today so-called Holy Wars. Fortunately Atheist, Jews, Christians nor any other sect can reach inside a person's heart and make them what they are not.

Think of it as a person who is born genetically gay, I think you would agree,they are gay and probably will always be gay. No one can change that, but faith in a higher power or God is an individual choice, the same as Atheism is an individual choice based on in your case of rational or logical thought as you see it.

Realities are obviously not the same for all people. I just accept your Atheism as your reality and other's faith as their reality and I wouldn't lose much sleep over it if I were you.

Unless you experience something you have not you have all the validity in the world to base and maintain the way you feel and that's just fine with me. There's no need to interfere into other people's lives you do not understand, even though you may think you understand.

As far as I see it in my world, I am tolerant of your world. Please show me the same tolerance, even though you think we're all a bunch of dummies.

And in saying this I know there are extreme factions in your world and also in my world. When you start seeing Atheism being attacked, let me know. I would venture to say it is a response to actions committed against Christianity by Atheist who are not tolerant of others beliefs. later----Have a great day!

but some evidently want everyone else to have their same lack of faith in a God and want to silence those who don't feel the same way.

Maybe you are right, but I feel like you are likely confusing some atheist's desire for a religionist to think rationally, with a desire for religionists to unilaterally accept that there is/are no god(s). Thinking rationally may or may not lead one to becoming an atheist, but it certainly should lead the religionist to accept that the religion they are embracing in no way answers the question of whether gods exist. Rational thinking would include that the religionist consider the full range of wildly differing religions throughout the world, and the obviously suspicious fact that the one they have wholeheartedly embraced just happens to be one that their particular culture is immersed in, and the fact that they know little if anything about the others. The same goes for religionists in all cultures throughout the world. Absolution devotion to such an unknowable concept, based purely on geography and osmosis? That's not asking you to share their belief that there is no such thing as gods, it's merely opening your eyes to how skewed your choice is, and to the validity of agnosticism, or pantheism, or simple deism for that matter. Our own take on the matter happens to be that since no two or more of them can be true, then all of them are false because they are all equally baseless. If your own rational thought process leads you to the same conclusion, then welcome to atheism - but agnosticism is a perfectly suitable conclusion as well. If the religionist still feels that their choice was a wise and justifiable one, then they should be happy to argue their point successfully. Ive never seen it happen, though.

I wouldn't concern myself if I were you with those that don't feel the same way as you do.

Its not about that, its about eliminating the discrimination that results from following one religious doctrine vs. another, or vs. none at all. Ive never seen a secular argument against homosexuality that didnt eventually devolve into because its totally gross, dude, but every single argument against homosexuality, where the person feels justified in interfering with the freedoms of others, is religiously based. Furthermore, they are perfectly happy to overlook to 50% divorce rate without criticism of people seeking divorces, while simultaneously condemning homosexuals. Considering what their religious doctrine has to say about both, the discrimination couldnt be more obvious. They want to hold the door open for divorce, since they have likely been divorced, possibly multiple times, but they insist on slamming the door on homosexuality.

I don't think priest are the only ones who rape children, so that is a poor argument to use in my opinion.

Then you are missing the point. A priest devotes their life and career exclusively to the servitude of their god, and is thus to be held to a higher standard than a school teacher, or a boy scout leader. Its 100% unacceptable in all cases, but being a priest/rabbi/imam etc. comes with an expectation that is commensurate with the level of trust they are entitled to, which should clearly exceed any other occupation.

Just like Len used all the monsters who were professed Atheist who have killed millions, you can blame them for giving Atheist a bad rap, not the Christians.

I refuse to accept a bad rap from the evil actions of a person who shares one single unrelated belief with me, any more than you should accept a bad rap from the evil actions of a religionist that shares a whole doctrine of beliefs with you. We dont run around calling all religionists child molesters, and we dont insinuate that because you are religious then you must be inclined to molest children we simply point out that being religious in no way is synonymous with being moral.

faith in a higher power or God is an individual choice, the same as Atheism is an individual choice based on in your case of rational or logical thought as you see it.

I agree. Unfortunately, religion is hardly a matter of the individual it is a matter of the individual and their agenda to suppress the rights of other individuals. When that stops, I suspect that atheists will rarely ever be heard from again, unless the religionist wants to seek us out and engage us. Im talking about gay marriage, violations of the Establishment Clause, creationism in public schools, abortion, leachy churches in violation of the law by using their pulpits to spread politics instead of ministering, government funding subjected to religious ideology (stem cell research), Dominionism, and a host of other issues.

Realities are obviously not the same for all people. I just accept your Atheism as your reality and other's faith as their reality and I wouldn't lose much sleep over it if I were you.

Lol you say that as if you are the norm. Do you think Len accepts my atheism, or the rights of others to marry who they love regardless of gender? There are millions of Lens out there. Believe me, I dont lose sleep over the Lens of the world, but they are the stuff of nightmares.

There's no need to interfere into other people's lives you do not understand, even though you may think you understand.

It is unfortunate that you dont even recognize how condescending that is. Generally speaking, I understand more about religion that religionists do. If youve been paying attention here on NT, you would see that the more I demonstrate my knowledge about religions, the more the religionists claim I am obsessed with religion! Its quite funny, actually. Im damned if I dont know about it, and Im even more damned when I do. I think Ive made an obvious and damning case for which side is guilty of interfering with the others.

As far as I see it in my world, I am tolerant of your world. Please show me the same tolerance, even though you think we're all a bunch of dummies.

If I remember correctly, you believe in a higher power, which puts you outside of the realm of Abrahamic religions and somewhere in the agnostic or pagan area. I have never taken issue with that mindset. I dont think you are the type to interfere with peoples freedoms based on religious ideology but please correct me if I am wrong. Heres the irony with all the bashing of liberalism that you do here on NT, your position in matters of religion are more liberal than just about anyone else here!

When you start seeing Atheism being attacked, let me know. I would venture to say it is a response to actions committed against Christianity by Atheist who are not tolerant of others beliefs.

Seriously? You do realize that your posting comments in an article with a plethora of comments attacking atheists, dont you? You dont find comparisons between Hitler and atheists to be an attack? Lol not believing in gods, murdering millions of people its all the same! Nothing offensive there at all.

Hal,

I find that T shirt a bit odd myself. Why should not believing in god be more enjoyable than believing in one. And for the record, I am agnostic.

Well those signs are pretty ridiculous.

Your religion tells you to love this god even more than you love your spouse, or your parents, or your children, yet it clearly doesn't give a shit about anybody.

Maybe the point is that people have free will. The experiment is to see how we use it. Just throwing that out there.

Tru dat!

You are also straight, and involved in a marriage, are you not? If one were to be born and raised into a Southern Baptist family, andhappen be homosexual, they would be hard pressed to have an enjoyable life whilst maintaining their Southern Baptist upbringing. I think the expression on the shirt is geared towards that sort of understanding.

Hal,

But that Billboard is just as faulty as full non belief in a god. Believe in Humanity? I think that humanity has been proving since the dawn of man, that they can't be believed in. Humanity sucks.

Perrie - name an organism that exists but doesn't have free will. There is no such thing as the opposite of free will in a life form, which makes the free will argument completely meaningless. It's like saying god could have made you out of steel, but he didn't because he loves you.

Easy there Debbie Downer. We also are known to nurture our young, to protect our environment, advance our lifespans, etc. etc. etc. Yes, there is a lot of bad humanity out there, but the good that it out there is not the exclusive domain of religion. Not by a long shot.

I gotta disagree with ya Mike. I think that most atheists don't hate religious folks. As a matter of fact, it is the other way around:

abcnews.go

Len,

What would you call the Spanish Inquisition? A love fest for Jews and Muslims alike?

Or the dozen wars fought in Europe after the Reformation?

Religion has been the excuse for a lot of bad behavior throughout history.

Perrie - name an organism that exists but doesn't have free will.

Loads of animals don't have free will, because that comes from reason. Most animals don't have reason, they have instincts. Only humans have reason, and that is where free will comes from, which makes my argument very relevant in this discussion.

Easy there Debbie Downer.

LOL, that is the first time I've been called that... but OK given my statement.

Yes, there is a lot of bad humanity out there, but the good that it out there is not the exclusive domain of religion. Not by a long shot.

There I agree.

Most of my non-synagogue friends are atheists.

Hello Perrie,

Look back at my post where I showed that the atheists, Hitler, Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot murdered upwards of 100 million people vs. upwards of 100 thousand for the Crusades and Inquisition. I will throw in the "dozen wars" for good measure and raise the number of dead to a million.

That is still a factor of 100 to one.

You are talking in circles and hypotheticals.

That is called "spin."

That spin does not give you a leg to stand on and it cannot contradict facts.

There is no atheistic definition of "good" but there is are religious definitions; the Golden Rule being just one of many.

The atheists, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot believed they were good.

On what basis, other than a religious one, can you contradict them? You consider them evil; they are convinced they were good. With no absolute standard one opinion is no better than another.

Hal... this is the last comment I'm making on this article. I agree with you on many of the errors I made in my comment. I guess I just consider myself an individual and not fit for collectivity. This is where I came from. My grand father lead the church for 75 years. My grand mother was the piano player and 3 of her daughters, who I love very much, were the loudest singers in the congregation. My grand father as a child helped with the building of the church. It was good for the whole community. I've never attended church as an adult as I did growing up. I guess the ole Urban definition will do to let you know who I think I am....

rebel

This thing didn't save as I had it laid out. Sorry.

That spin does not give you a leg to stand on and it cannot contradict facts.

You only have one fact correct in your comparison of atheists and Hitler - they all don't believe in gods.The rest of yourtripe isakin tocomparing apples and rubik's cubes.

Instinct?

Even amoebas exhibit signs of free will. Anything that has no ability to exhibit some degree of free willwould betaken out by natural selection.

When water or food is scarce, some amoebas respond by rolling into a ball and secreting a protective body covering called a cyst membrane.

Do you frequently remind them that there's no difference between them and Hitler?

Many evil leaders are atheists, as I conclusively showed, but many atheists are good people, including my friends. Hal, I am sure you are good also.But most of these friends come from families who were religious not too far back. So the retain religious ethical values. How about you Hal? How far back does atheism go in your family?

Morality is basic to religion but not to atheism. Atheism is amoral. There are no rules for atheists as there are or religious folks. It is absurd to tell an immoral atheist: "Hey, atheists are not supposed to do such things." But it would be appropriate to admonishan immoral "religious" person in this manner. I put "religious" in scare quotes because an immoral "religious" person cannot be said to be truly religious.

Istrongly believe the world is a better place because of its religious heritage, notwithstanding a shaky history and current evil Islamism,and that it is deteriorating as religion recedes.

Someone like Pope Francis is good for the world, as is my rabbi. Nelson Mandela was religious.

macon...

Morality is basic to religion

Bullhockey.

What humans call morality is built on Empathy, not on any given religious dogma. Thats why the ethic of reciprocity or the Golden Rule plays such a prominent roll in the history of man.

From ancient Babylons Code of Hammurabi thru The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few Spock, it's empathy that leads the way toward an ever better human society.

Religious dogma builds on human empathy, not the other way around. As an example, one of the reasons Hitler, raised a good Catholic boy, could turn out to be such a dick, was no empathy NOT no religion.

Clamming some imagery moral high ground just because of the dogma some of our more proselytizing, (pushy), religious folks have chosen to follow is one of the things that can lead to push back from those that don't happen to suckle at the same religious tit.

Well stated AH. Len's argument is so flawed that it almost doesn't merit a response. Basically, whether he realizes it or not, he is stating that the only way truemorality can be achieved is if the individual allows their thinking to include the positive acceptance that some sort of god(s) exist. For the atheist, this is a plain impossibility, and an absolutely false equivalence. Atheists would have to lie to themselves and everyone else in order to achieve such a goal, regardless of how intrinsically good they are.

In his defense, I have gleaned a lifelong awareness that there are people who simply cannot understand what it truly means to be an atheist. To these people, atheism is some choice being taken for the purposes of railing against religion, or because atheists literally hate god. To them, it is an undeniable impossibility for a person totruthfully believe that there is no creator. It is no surprise that many of these people see homosexuality in the same way - in that the homosexual chooses their path and could choose theheterosexual path at any moment if they would just stop trying to fight it. If you're not living the way they are, you are only going out of your wayjust to berebellious. This saddens them, so they follow up their accusations with "I'll pray for you" - sincein their eyes the atheistshave clearlydoomed themselves for eternity.

First, Hermit, get your history right. Though it is good enough for you and Hal it does not pass muster.

Babylon

In ancient Babylon, there was the code of Hammurabi:

"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

While this edict's fixation on retribution makes it a far cry from the Golden Rule, it is mankind's first attempt at equality. By focusing on those who have been wronged, Hammurabi's code elevated the consciousness of man out of the primitive and fierce law of the jungle: "Kill or be killed."

keen...

Ancient Babylon

The Code of Hammurabi (1780 BC) ^{[ 10 ]} dealt with the reciprocity of the Lex talionis in ways such as limiting retribution, as they did concepts of retribution (literally "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth").

en.wikipedia

By the way, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," was taken literally in Hammurabi's Babylon. In Judaism it is limited to financial compensation. Only "life for life" is taken literally in the case of cold-blooded murder.

Second, "empathy" is a poor way to judge goodness because it is in the eye of the beholder. During the Holocaust German women formed a club to save and nourish the pets of murdered Jews. How is that for empathy? Hitler had empathy for Arians; hence "lebensraum." Liberals generally have empathy for cold-blooded murderers on death row more than for their victims; more empathy for Arab suuicide bombers than for their Israeli victims.

Suckling the empathy tit is a no-winner.

But what makes you think religious people lack empathy; the right kind of empathy?

"You who love the Lord hate evil." (Psalms)

Isaiah 1:10-27, 57:7-11, 58:3-14

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me. Im sated with the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I do not delight in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs or of he goats. --- Bring no more vain offerings; they are incense of abomination to me. --- Your hands are full of blood. --- Wash yourselves and make yourselves clean; put away evil from before My eyes; stop doing evil and begin doing good. Seek justice; relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. --- Zion will be redeemed with justice and those that return to her with righteousness.

--- you perform sacrifices. [but] behind the door --- you have directed your thoughts. Abandoning Me, you have gone up on the couch you made so wide. --- You have found gratification in your lust, and so you never cared. Whom did you dread and fear, that you tell lies? But you gave no thought to Me.

Why, when we fasted did you not see? --- Because on your fast day you see to your business and oppress all your laborers! Because you fast in strife and contention and strike with a wicked fist! Your fasting today is not such as to make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast I choose --- ? NO, this is the fast I desire: to unlock the fetters of wickedness, --- to let the oppressed go free; --- to share your bread with the hungry, and take the wretched poor into your home; when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to ignore your own family. Then shall your light burst through like dawn, and your healing spring up quickly; Your Vindicator shall march before you; the presence of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then when you call the Lord will answer; when you cry He will say, Here I am. --- If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath, from pursuing your affairs on My holy day; --- then can you seek the favor of the Lord. I will set you astride the heights of the earth, --- For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

"You who love the Lord hate evil."

a) Child molesting priests love the Lord.

b) This idiotic statement does not imply anything about those who reject the idea of a creator. Guess what - the vast majority of us hate evil too.

Hal, do you understand English? Iplainly explained the difference between atheists who do evil vs. so-called religious people who do so.

"Religious" evildoers are violating their "dogma" to use Hermit's word. What are atheists violating; "empathy?"

Actually -- nothing! On what basis can you tell an atheistic pedophile he is wrong? It is just a matter of o[pinion. He thinks it is perfectly OK and there is even a pedophile advocacy club.

On what basis can you tell an atheistic pedophile he is wrong? It is just a matter of o[pinion. He thinks it is perfectly OK and there is even a pedophile advocacy club.

Well Len, would you be happier if we claimed that the Flying Spaghetti Monster left a doctrine on some mountain top that says raping children is wrong? We are intrinsically wise enough to know that wedon't need to be told that raping children is wrong, but since you think it's just not possible to make that distinction without the aid of some obscure rules written down somewhere (which, ironically the bible does not do ... but we'vebeen through thatalready), we'd be happy to make some shit up justlike your people did, and lie about where it came from (just like your people did.) Why do you hate secular laws so much, anyways?

Len>> Permalink On what basis can you tell an atheistic pedophile he is wrong? It is just a matter of opinion. He thinks it is perfectly OK and there is even a pedophile advocacy club.

Well Len, would you be happier if we claimed that the Flying Spaghetti Monster left a doctrine on some mountain top that says raping children is wrong? We are intrinsically wise enough to know that wedon't need to be told that raping children is wrong,

You did not answer my question. We were not even talking about rape. Do you see that word in my question? Your changing the subject leads me to think you are at least ambivalent about pedophilia. What if the child is given a lollypop, or an iPad and consents? Is it OK then? Even if you do think it is still wrong, the pedophile thinks its OK. How do you tell who is wrong?

Is it OK for a father to have sex with his of-age daughter? No secular law against that but the Bible forbids it just as it forbids such relationships between many kinds of close relatives.

we'd be happy to make some shit up justlike your people did, and lie about where it came from (just like your people did.)

What evidence do you have that the Bible was made up? If it makes you happy, do it and post it on NT. I promise to read it.

Why do you hate secular laws so much, anyways?

Where did you see me say I hate secular laws? I love them and obey them. The Bible commands us to obey government laws. Jeremiah wrote:

Seek the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you and pray to the Lord in its behalf; for in its prosperity you shall prosper. (Jer. 29:7)

And the Talmud says: The law of the land is the LAW

You criticize our made-up stuff as s--t without knowing what is in it.

Like somehow the Golden Rule only applies to people who believe in fairy tales

You should have that attitude to the rest of the Bible too. If you tried reading it you might like it.

You did not answer my question. We were not even talking about rape.

Your Bible routinely yammers on about rape, even condoning it alongside incest and murder of certain peoples, and you're going to quibble about me interchangeably using the word rape in place of molest? We have secular laws that overwhelmingly outlaw incest, pedophilia, rape and bestiality. We don't need your Biblical vagaries to complicate the interpretations in matters of sex and morality.

What evidence do you have that the Bible was made up?

It is not incumbent upon me to provide evidence that the Bible was made up, it is incumbent upon YOU to provide evidence that the Bible WAS NOT made up! Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This is your biggest stumbling block, and religion's biggest stumbling block in general. You have no more evidence that yourdoctrine is divinely inspired thanany other mainstream religion has for their supposed divinely inspired doctrines.Therefore, every time that you spit out aBible quote, it is of no value whatsoever in this discussion. The best anyone can offer in regards to your scripture spamming, is an Occam's Razor observation - which would indicate that your doctrine is simply an ancientmanmade creation, not some trump card by an eternally absent and non-communicative deity.

Where did you see me say I hate secular laws? I love them and obey them.

Then why do you continually put Biblical law above secular law?

The Bible commands us to obey government laws.

So quit whining about modern secular laws then.

If you tried reading it you might like it.

I guarantee you that I have read enough of the Bible to know positively that I don't like it. Frankly, I find most of it to be horrific and disgusting.

Your Bible routinely yammers on about rape, even condoning it alongside incest and murder of certain peoples, and you're going to quibble about me interchangeably using the word rape in place of molest?

Where? Again you are changing the subject. I did not mention molest either. The Bible condemns rape and specifies fences to prevent it.

We have secular laws that overwhelmingly outlaw incest, pedophilia, rape and bestiality.

I notice you did not include homosexuality. Thanks to liberals it is no longer outlawed. If pedophilia is illegal how come this organization is allowed?

nambla

The North American Man/Boy Love Association ( NAMBLA ) is a pedophile and pederasty advocacy organization in the United States. It works to abolish age of consent laws criminalizing adult sexual involvement with minors, ^{[1] [2]} and for campaigns the release of all men who have been jailed for sexual contacts with minors that did not involve coercion .

I will bet that the vast majority of the 1100 members are atheists.

We don't need your Biblical vagaries to complicate the interpretations in matters of sex and morality.

The Bible is not vague. It is a lot more specific than you are.

Len>>What evidence do you have that the Bible was made up?

It is not incumbent upon me to provide evidence that the Bible was made up, it is incumbent upon YOU to provide evidence that the Bible WAS NOT made up! Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This is your biggest stumbling block, and religion's biggest stumbling block in general. You have no more evidence that yourdoctrine is divinely inspired thanany other mainstream religion has for their supposed divinely inspired doctrines.

I will show you reasonable evidence in a separate message in additional to the brief comment below about the priestly gene..

Therefore, every time that you spit out aBible quote, it is of no value whatsoever in this discussion. The best anyone can offer in regards to your scripture spamming, is an Occam's Razor observation - which would indicate that your doctrine is simply an ancientmanmade creation, not some trump card by an eternally absent and non-communicative deity.

Au contraire, Occams razor demonstrates that, if the Bible was manmade fiction neither it or the Jewish people would have survived intact for thousands of years. There would not be all the archaeological evidence for the events described. For example we have a priestly tribe descended from Moses brother Aaron. Do you know that there is a unique priestly gene that most men who identify with the priestly tribe have?

sciencedaily

why do you continually put Biblical law above secular law?

When did I do so? You keep making things up. Biblical laws are in agreement or addition to secular law, not in conflict. In fact our system of justice and courts are biblically based.

>>It is not incumbent upon me to provide evidence that the Bible was made up, it is incumbent upon YOU to provide evidence that the Bible WAS NOT made up! Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This is your biggest stumbling block, and religion's biggest stumbling block in general. You have no more evidence that yourdoctrine is divinely inspired thanany other mainstream religion has for their supposed divinely inspired doctrines.

The revelation on Mt. Sinai was not to one person, Moses, as many think, but to the entire group of about one million plus that left Egypt (600 thousand men, their wives and children, and a mixed multitude -- of Gentiles) (Ex. 12:37). This is unique in religious history, or else the biggest mass deception ever perpetrated.

Even if you inquire about times long ago, going back to the time that God created man on earth ... has anything as great as this has ever happened, or has the like of it ever been known? Has any people ever heard God speaking out of the fire, as you have, and survived [to tell about it.] Has God ever ventured to bring one nation out of the midst of another with such tremendous miracles, signs, wonders, war, a mighty hand and outstretched arm, and terrifying phenomena, as God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? You are the ones who have been shown; so that you will know that God is the Supreme Being, and that there is none besides Him. From the heavens you heard His voice disciplining you, and on earth He showed you His great fire, and that you heard His words from the fire. (Deut. 4:32-36)

The Historical Argument

The foundation of Judaism is a mesorah -- a national historical tradition based on the fact that every Jew alive at the time of the revelation at Sinai personally experienced God speaking to the assembled Jewish nation. It was not miracles, but the unbroken 3300-year transmission of this experience, which stands as the single greatest demonstration of the truth of Judaisms claim that God gave the Torah to the Jews and, through them, to the entire world.

Our ability to verify historical accounts is based on various kinds of evidence, the most important being the number of eyewitnesses. Based on the standard of the number of eyewitnesses, we can divide historical claims into four categories:

Type A: Personal Experience of One Person. If the claimed event actually occurred the individual would have been the only eyewitness. The claim to historical validity would rest solely on his testimony.

Type B: Small Groups Experiencing an Event: The number could be anywhere from two to a thousand.

Type C: Events Experienced by Large Numbers: Requires a very large number, roughly 50 thousand or more, to witness the event. Only this type of claim has even the possibility of being a national historical claim. The greater the number, the greater the veracity.

Type D: Events Witnessed by an Entire Nation.

Which type is most believable and makes the most sense? Type A claims are completely unverifiable. Type B claims are clearly better than Type A although they are still inferior to Type C. The claims of Christianity are of Type B with the numbers who witnessed miraculous events claimed as being up to 500.

Type C claims have myriad numbers of witnesses and must be taken seriously. Moreover, when an event is part of a nations history, it will soon become an unquestioned national historical fact since so many will be testifying and telling their children about it. These kinds of events constitute what is commonly known as history. If a person tried to make a Type C claim for a fictitious event he would have great difficulty getting hundreds of thousands of people to believe that there were eyewitnesses to events that never actually happened. The Holocaust is in this class. There are many Holocaust deniers but they are dismissed because there are simply too many witnesses.

The Type D claim is the most robust kind; the easiest kind to verify. If true, then everyone in the national group will know it at the deepest level of knowledge, since everyone (of that generation) was actually a witness. The next generation will also know the event occurred both because their own parents, direct eyewitnesses, told them, and because everyone else in the nation is either a direct eyewitness or the offspring of one. It is hard to imagine such an event passing from the nations memory even hundreds or thousands of years later.

How would it be possible to fool an entire nation into believing that they experienced something that never happened or which had been completely misrepresented? How could they all be so completely fooled so as to transmit the story of the event to their children generation after generation without others denying the historicity?

Judaism is the only religion that is based on a verifiable claim in the above sense. All other religions claims are not so verifiable, being based on Type A or B claims. The Jewish historical tradition has been preserved and passed down through written records or oral traditions that have been fully accepted as true by the nation itself. In addition, independent corroboration and archeological evidence both lend strength to the historical claims, though neither are prerequisites for reliable verification. The Revelation at Sinai is at least as verifiable as any other major event in ancient history.

Judaism, among all the worlds religions, attributes no significance to claims of miracles as a basis for its truth. For the Jew the fact that Christianity claims that Jesus performed miracles, in front of small groups, has absolutely no bearing on the religion at all. Maimonides wrote, ... Israel did not believe in Moses ... because of the miracles he performed. For when ones faith is based on miracles, a lurking doubt always remains that it is possible these miracles were performed through [magic tricks.] Moses performed his miracles because they were necessary, and not as proof of his prophesies... What then is the basis of Jewish faith? The Revelation at Sinai which we saw with our own eyes, and heard with our own ears, not having to depend on the testimony of others ... and therefore [the Torah] says, Face to face God spoke with you (the Jewish people).

Maimonides then sets forth the fundamental principle of the historical argument:

The Revelation at Sinai itself is the sole proof that Moses prophecy (the entire Torah) is truth... Before this event they did not believe with a faith that would have endured forever, but only with a belief that would have eventually been followed by doubt and suspicion.

BTW, a detailed description of the events leading up to the Revelation, and of Gods revealing the commandments, is given in Exodus Chap. 19-21 with the Ten Commandments themselves given in Ch. 20.

Again, not a single other religion makes a Type D claim. Virtually every other aspect of the Torah has been borrowed or copied by the Gentile world: circumcision, ritual bath (baptism), dietary restrictions, Sabbath and the Sabbatical year. Modern western social and legal systems are largely based on Torah foundations. Social equality, criminal justice, charity, brotherhood, labor laws, fair-wage guidelines, and loving ones neighbor are all derived from this 3300-year-old Torah. One thing that has *not* been lifted by other religions, either directly or with modification, is the foundation of the system; the idea of a Type D Revelation to the entire Jewish people, the idea described in Duet. 4 quoted at the outset. Here is how the Bible describes it:

Deut. 4:9 But take utmost care and watch yourselves scrupulously, so that you do not forget the things that you saw with your own eyes and so that they do not fade from your mind as long as you live. And make them known to your children and to your childrens children: 10 The day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to Me, Gather the people to Me that I may let them hear My words, in order that they may learn to revere Me as long as they live on earth, and may so teach their children. 11 You came forward and stood at the foot of the mountain. The mountain was ablaze with flames to the very skies, dark with densest clouds. 12 The Lord spoke to you out of the fire; you heard the sound of words but perceived no shape, nothing but a voice. 13 He declared to you the covenant that He commanded you to observe, the Ten Commandments; and He inscribed them on two tablets of stone. 14 At the same time the Lord commanded me to impart to you laws and rules for you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy.

The Torah is making two distinct claims in the Deut. quote: First that the entire Jewish nation heard God speak at Mt. Sinai (50 days after the Exodus). Second that no other nation, throughout history, can make this claim; either in the past or in the future. Certainly the second one is true. No other religion has made such a claim before or since.

Consider: If God were to introduce Himself to a large group of people, and establish a permanent religion, which method would make more sense: to transmit it directly to each and every person individually or to transmit it to a prophet who would relay the message? Obviously the former is the more credible means.

Inasmuch as a national revelation is the best way to begin a religion, why is it that Judaism, alone among the many religions, is *unique* in making this claim? Furthermore let us assume that a human author, forging the document in Gods Name wrote the Torah. As the forger predicted that no one else would make this claim, the best claim, why did he think that others could not similarly make such a claim?

There are two possible instances when the Torah could have been given: either at Mt. Sinai as the Torah itself claims, or at any other time. Consider the first instance!

Assume that Moses and a committee went up the mountain and spent 40 days inventing the Torah. Then they returned and presented it to the nation. What would have happened next?

Where did you get that? the Israelites would ask. It says right in here that God gave it to *all of us.* Moses would answer. Clearly this is a hard sell. It is hard for a small group to lie about the experience of an entire nation. Even bible critics do not claim that Moses put forth a false claim like this.

Suppose that the Torah was given at a later date. Let us say that Ezra the scribe or King Josiah appeared a thousand years after the alleged date of the Revelation and presented the Jewish people with a lost Torah. Several Bible critics subscribe to this theory. The people would ask, Where did you get this from? Ezra would say, Read it. It says right here that God gave this Torah to the entire nation a thousand years ago. The people could ask, Where was this Torah yesterday? How come we never saw or heard of it before? My father of grandfather never mentioned it.

Ezra could respond that the event did happen a thousand years ago but that it was forgotten, or the Torah was lost and just found. First, how could such an earth-shattering event such as God revealing Himself to an entire nation be forgotten? Second, not only is it impossible for a religion and nation to forget its founding experience, but the Torah itself promises that it will never be forgotten:

When they are beset with many evils and troubles, this song (of Moses) shall testify for them as a witness, since it shall not be forgotten by the mouths of their descendants. (Deut. 31:21)

If it had been forgotten, this in itself would disprove the claim of Divine authorship. If God wrote the Torah, how could it be that His statement is proven false? The Dead Sea Scrolls reveal that the Torah we read today is virtually unchanged from the 2000-year-old fragments found in the Dead Sea caves.

Therefore, at no time would it have been possible for such a fabrication of the Torah to have been perpetrated in a believable way. The fact that the majority of the Jewish people, for the past 3000 years, have accepted this claim as their history can only be because it is true. And that is the reason why there is only one nation and one religion in the entire world that can make the claim of National Revelation.

There are many individual items in the Bible that have been verified. Aside from the priestly gene such include the great flood, many of the Ten Plagues and the Jerusalem Temple.

The Bible condemns rape and specifies fences to prevent it.

So when your god says to slay every man, woman and child of a particular location, except for the young girls which can be taken for your usage, that god is displaying morality? And when that god said to prove your love for him by killing your baby, that was the only way he could think of to show love and loyalty to him?

I notice you did not include homosexuality. Thanks to liberals it is no longer outlawed.

Yes! Thanks to liberals! Although, Im quite certain that the world is saturated with gay conservatives too, since sexuality has nothing to do with liberalism or conservativism. Im glad that we can finally agree on some common sense secular ideology that goes contrary to biblical principles! (/s)It shouldnt be a surprise, however, since you have already allowed yourself to ignore biblical views on divorce. According to you, the bible allows for divorce under extreme circumstances and to you, a 50% divorce rate isnt alarming enough to constitute moral outrage over a blatant violation of biblical principles. Instead, you concentrate your efforts on the bibles vague views regarding gay sex, which you no doubt find to be just plain icky.

I will bet that the vast majority of the 1100 members are atheists.

And I bet that priests who molest children, and priests who enable priests to molest children, and priests who cover up for priests who molest children, are god fearing religious people. However, unlike you, I would never follow up that bet with such a stupid accusation as all priests are therefore child molesters. As far as NAMBLA goes, you have no evidence whatsoever about the religious preferences of its members, and I have never met an atheist who isnt disgusted to their core by the concept of child molestation, incest, and bestiality, or an organization that would publicly promote any of these behaviors. You tell me Len, since your claim to have so many atheist friends what are their feelings about this issue? The fact that you have already confirmed your friendship with them makes me think (or hope, anyways) that you share with them an abhorrence for such disgusting behavior.

The Bible is not vague. It is a lot more specific than you are.

Really? Weve been through this, Len. Of the 10 most important biblical values, supposedly etched into stone by the divine hand of god itself, which one explicitly states anything that could be associated with all this garbage you are pushing about religious morality in relation to pedophilia, or the dreaded scourge of homosexuality! By the tone of your outrage over these two issues, I should think that they would have outranked thou shall not be jealous of your neighbors donkey, or dont use my name in vein. Such is not the case, because your doctrine is chock full of vagaries, contradictions, and just plain nonsense.

Au contraire, Occams razor demonstrates that, if the Bible was manmade fiction neither it or the Jewish people would have survived intact for thousands of years.

Riiiight the only artifacts to survive the tests of time are associated with your religion. Sure thing, Len. Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with a museum sometime. In it, you would be likely to find artifacts from countless other ancient religions which you yourself have deemed to be fictional. Many of those artifacts will pre-date Abrahamic religious doctrine. Nice try, but that is a total fail.

There would not be all the archaeological evidence for theevents described.

Like evidence of a worldwide flood that occurred within the last 10,000 years, with an impossible amount of water, that wiped out virtually all biological and vegetable life? I should think that that one would be pretty easy to identify, and there are plenty of evangelical and fundamentalist ignoramuses who assert that the proof exists but, please tell me you arent one of them. Im guessing that you are squarely in the camp of thats just scriptural hyperbole further illustrating how ambiguous and vague these ancient scribblings are.

When did I do so? You keep making things up. Biblical laws are in agreement or addition to secular law, not in conflict. In fact our system of justice and courts are biblically based.

Hello? Our secular laws are in agreement with many laws in places not affiliated with Abrahamic religions because they are based on common sense. If you need the bible to inform you that murdering your neighbor is wrong, then it is you that society should be wary of.

The revelation on Mt. Sinai was not to one person, Moses, as many think, but to the entire group of about one million plus that left Egypt (600 thousand men, their wives and children, and a mixed multitude -- of Gentiles) (Ex. 12:37). This is unique in religious history, or else the biggest mass deception ever perpetrated.

Holy crap. Are you not aware that virtually every earthly civilization has undergone similar supposed events throughout ancient history, that if untrue would qualify as mass deceptions? Yours is not unique, nor is there any reason to believe it is any more true or accurate.

How would it be possible to fool an entire nation into believing that they experienced something that never happened or which had been completely misrepresented?

Gee Len, I dont know. Sure is strange that the world is saturated with people who call bullshit to these claims though, huh? It should be just as obvious to everyone else in the world, but it isnt because it is pure bullshit. Your religion may have some distinction in the veracity of their claims, but they sure as hell dont have any influence over those who tend to believe in the traditions of their own culture. You know what would clear all this up? Of course you do for this god that you claim caused all this confusion to once again make itself known, and re-clarify all the bullshit claims your people are insisting on to make themselves look more important than the rest of the world. Face it - its not going to happen. I understand that Jews obviously dont recognize the Jesus figure to be the son of god, but assuming he actually existed at all, he was a Jew who claims to have a direct connection to god. He was also an apocalyptic who claimed that many of those who existed contemporaneously with him will not die before witnessing the apocalypse first-hand. Or was that just the biggest mass deception ever perpetrated on mankind? Sadly, this same ridiculous deception continues to perpetuate certain segments of the modern world.

He declared to you the covenant that He commanded you to observe, the Ten Commandments; and He inscribed them on two tablets of stone. 14 At the same time the Lord commanded me to impart to you laws and rules for you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy.

Hmph speaking of ancient religious artifacts, it is strange that the one piece of durable evidence for these events that isnt based on hearsay, is mysteriously no longer a part of the historical record. That would have lent quite a bit of credence to such wildly suspicious and egregiously presumptive claims by your religion. I guess Moses is humanitys biggest idiot for seeing to it that the only credible evidence of a god was destroyed. Great job Moses.

When the opinion of one religious group tries to force their ideology on others they are no better than the Worst politicians who are rich from bribes. Religion denies free thinking and instead provides how you should think and live your life.

The church is their own worst enemy. Everyone wants their children to grow up and be smart and make their own decisions then condemn them when they do. The very scientists and genealogist and Research scientists are condemned by the right wing extremist.

I prefer the Unitarian Church if any. The believers of all religions and athiests and agnostics are all welcome. Satanist are excluded.