Bikerman

I see that as a plus, not a minus. Imagine we all turned round and said - 'yep, that'll do, this is as good as it gets. Don't worry about starvation or children dying of easy to prevent disease - just leave it as it is'.Being unsatisfied is what gets people out of bed and doing things. The alternative is a lotus-eater utopia.

I have yet to see anything which is beyond material explanation. I would even go further - I have yet to see any reliable evidence that such a thing exists.From my perspective you are looking for an answer to a question that does not exist.The physical universe is already explained to a very large extend. The last frontier of science is the human mind. This is a far more difficult enterprise - eplaining the formation and dynamics of stars and planets is childs-play compared to explaining consciousness. It is only really in the last century that science has started on this problem, and only really in the last couple of decades that serious progress has been made.Science may never address issues such as 'what is a well=lived life?' (but I don't see any reason in principle why it cannot) - but answers to that question are not found in bronze-age scribblings or mysticism - they are found in the thought and writings of the great philosophers. Mysticism is the ultimate cop-out - it says 'the answer is too difficult, therefore God(s) did it'.

But calling me religious IS insulting. I reject religion - religion is a worldview that includes some sort of creation deity or some supernatural organising principle. I do not believe in anything like that, so calling me religious is therefore incorrect, If you want to say 'spiritual' then I would probably accept that term because spiritual can just mean awe at the universe and I certainly have that,If you believe in a monotheistic deity then by definition you are saying that everyone who doesn't is wrong - they MUST be, or else you are. If Jesus is God then Islam is wrong and there is no 'final prophet'. If Islam is right then Jesus was not God....and so on.Sure you can pick and mix and build some personal religion from the pieces - and many people do - but you end up with either a peculiar and idiosyncratic religion with weird beliefs - the Mormons would be a good example - or you end up with such a wishy-washy confused mush that being a member of that religion is essentially meaningless - an example of that is the Church of England.You ask what it matters? So do you think that, as long as a lie results in a useful outcome it is then OK? It's not for me, maybe that is a difference. I believe that people have the right to truth, even if it is not what they might want to hear. I don't think it is ever justified to lie to people just to make them happy unless you are certain that they would wish you to do so - ie almost never.

You might find it useful to watch the following - it explains very well why free-speech MUST include offensive speech.http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

PPS What I do or do not know about India is simply a red-herring. I know where to get definitive statistics and that is enough. I really don't see what you hope to gain by denying the obvious. If you seriously think that either life expectancy has not gone up in India, or that it has gone up due to religion, then you are simply denying demonstrable fact - like sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting 'I can't hear so it can't be true'.The stats are easily available and the reasons are well documented:http://www.indianchild.com/life_expectany_mortality_india.htm

PS - You need to know basic physics if you want to talk intelligently about the Big bang. Of course you can 'express your things' without such basic knowledge, but I can't imagine why you would expect anyone to take such 'things' seriously since they are self-admittedly based on ignorance. And just in case you can't see why your 'ad populum' argument is idiotic you might like to consider that about 2 billion people believe that jesus was God. A lot more people believe he wasn't. Using your own dodgy logic that 'proves' that Jesus was not god.

Please don't agree with me...anyone who thinks that a punch in the belly is somehow acceptable doesn't live in my universe.Anyone who uses the word 'only' in front of the words 'humiliation and pain' is so far away from my world that anytime they agree with me causes me worry.

Well, I wouldn't particularly recommend the bible to anyone as a basis for morality, but that isn't really the point. The point is that if you say Jesus would have done this or that, or you say 'This is a Christian idea....' or, in fact, if you say anything about Christianity, then what is it based on? The only source is the bible - and that includes all the nasty bits as well as the cherry-picked passages that Christians love to quote. What about the basic starting point? God tells Abraham to kill his son, simply to prove his faith. How do you make a moral God out of that? I really want to know.... Have you got any idea how insulting that is? I don't avoid doing evil as part of any 'religion' and I really resent someone telling me that I do. I avoid evil because I am a rational person who has thought carefully about morality. But even if I hadn't, do you really think that irrational notions are required for people to do good? Do you think that atheists like me, who explicitly say loud and clear that we are NOT religious are just lying?

Yes it does mean you can abuse people....that's the whole point really. Once you start imposing limits - like it must be 'appropriate' - then you have de-facto imposed a censor. Freedom of expression means the freedom to offend and if you really don't see that then I don't think you've understood the basic concept. Sorry but I'm not prepared to simply accept someone's word that they are a physics grad, expecially when they don't understand basic qm. And I think that clinches it. Any real physics graduate who made such an idiotic statement would be locked-up by the physics police. If you really don't understand the difference between anecdote and statistical data then Mumbai university sucks. You said that science is not responsible for people living longer. I demonstrated conclusively that it is. Of course you can cherry pick individual cases that have lived long lives just like I can show you many smokers who lived to 100 - it doesn't mean that smoking is good for you and it doesn't disprove the FACT that science has increased the life expectancy in India by over 50% in as many years. Ahh so now we move on to the next fallacy - the ad-populum fallacy. Good example of it here - most people believe x therefore x must be true. It takes a certain sort of idiot to believe this is valid. Anyone with an ounce of sense would test the rule by seeing how it works over history. Let's see....let's try it with:The majority of people think that electrons look like ping-pong balls, only smaller. Therefore - THEY ARE! or The majority of people in 1200CE thought the sun moved around the earth - so IT DID! Physics graduate? I really don't think so. I don't have a 'strong hatred' for Christianity. I regard it as a wrong-headed idea which is dangerous and needs to be challenged. I don't particularly want to live in a society where irrationality is praised, and I certainly don't want people with such irrational beliefs in positions of power. Being someone committed to democracy that means that I speak out against it, in the fine traditions of democracy. Right again it seems.....

Since you are from Mumbai I checked the stats for india, 2 generations ago (1960) your 'ancestors' lived 42.3 years on average. Today it is 66.5 on average. That is ENTIRELY due to science - it cannot be due to religion unless you think religion has suddenly gone shooting up. So in just half a century your life expectancy has increased by more than 50%....Point proven, case closed. Source - http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ I wonder now if you will have the honesty to admit you are wrong? My experience of theists tells me that you won't and will simply look for some other way to justify your nonsense. It is ironic that theists who run around telling people to follow commandments that include 'Do not bear false witness' seem to think it somehow doesn't apply to them, and that they can come out with any old nonsense, as long as they are defending their irrational belief system. You should be ashamed but I'll bet you are not. Actually, I should thank you. You have provided an almost perfect example of the way theists spread their nonsense. You start by making lots of claims that cannot be checked, and accusing critics of being 'ignorant' about spirituality, Then occasionally you slip-up and make a statement that CAN be checked. And as soon as it IS checked it turns out that it is a lie. This is how, for example, Christianity has functioned in the west for 2000 years. As soon as it is possible to CHECK their pronouncements - whether it is the size of the earth, the position, the shape, the movement - you name it - then we find out that the religious 'truth' is garbage. And do these Christians apologise for lying to everyone? Do they hell, they simply claim that they knew all along, and go on to invent some other nonsense.

Err , yes I damn well do - we call it freedom of expression. I know you might not like it, but it doesn't matter whether you do or do not.Theists like to pull this trick all the time. 'Oh you mustn't criticise people's sincere beliefs' they say. Well that is rubbish. Nobody says that I must not criticise people's political choices so what is special about their religious choice? Nothing, that's what. I can't blame you for trying - this tactic worked for centuries after all. It doesn't work now, though, so get used to it. When theists make ridiculous claims then people like me will stand up and call them on it. That is how it now is and I think it is about time. Quantum fluctuation - they happen all the time and don't need a cause.But the truth is that you don't really understand the question so you won't understand the answer. What makes you feel that you are qualified to make statements about physics? Are you a physicist? Or is this stuff you just read about? Would you go into an operating theatre and tell the surgeon how to make the incisions and what to do afterwards? Probably not, eh? Because you would KNOW that you don't have sufficient knowledge to say anything useful on the matter. When it comes to equally complex matters of physics, however, you suddenly feel qualified to give an opinion and apparently you expect it to be taken seriously....I wonder why? No, you are confusing YOU for WE. YOU don't understand the science therefore YOU don't understand the answers. You do not speak for me and you do not speak for science in general. The evidence for the BB is overwhelming but YOU don't understand it.At least try to be honest. I simply do not believe you and until you do what you say you can do then I will continue to believe you are simply lying or deluded. Evidence my friend, evidence. Ahh, at last a statement we can TEST.You say your ancestors survived - I presume you mean they survived to an age similar to that we enjoy today? I say you are lying, but it is easy to check.

Well, each to their own. I find your method incoherent, dangerous and almost certain to result in confusion and error.We see exactly that in this thread. You have, several times, made statements about religion that are just wrong - not matters of opinion, just plain wrong.I think that there is no higher imperative than speaking truth - I don't think it is ever permissable to lie, although in some circumstance it is, perhaps, understandable. I'm not saying that I don't lie - I'm as human and as weak as anyone and like anyone else I lie, a lot. I TRY not to, however, and I especially try not to when in a public discussion like this;Take the posting above - you say that you 'go through the teachings of Christ'. That simply isn't true is it? The teachings of Christ appear in only one place - the New Testament.The truth is that I don't think you have the first clue about what Jesus taught, yet you have convinced yourself that you do. I say that not to condem you, or even criticise. It is so common I find it depressing. Everyday I meet Christians who do the same thing - they go out on the streets preaching something they have invented, but call it Christianity. I get people knocking on my door to tell me the 'Good News' about 'Jesus' and when I ask them some serious questions they have no idea. It seems that the more ignorant a person is, the more they feel it is their duty to spread their ignorance.If you are serious about knowing what Jesus taught then you start by reading the bible - critically. Then you need to know the context, so you have to do some work on Hebrew, learn the history of the time, learn about the Roman Empire during the occupation of Palestine - and so on. It is not simply a case of learning a couple of quotes (which are wrong in an embarrassingly high number of cases).I have no respect for anyone who preaches based on 'personal revelation'. 'Jesus talks to me' they say. 'I have a relationship with Jesus' is another common line. Absolute rubbish, yet people take it seriously. Here's the thing though. They only take it seriously when Jesus tells the person to do something nice. When a Muslim blows-up 50 people and himself because God told him to do it, nobody believes that God REALLY told him. Yet when a Christian tells you that 'Jesus told him to pull the little boy out of the fire' then people all shout 'Amen to that'. Rank hypocrisy and double standards and it frankly makes my stomache turn.Thanks-God, says the person who survived the plane crash. The Lord saved me. Oh really? So the other 99 people who died were too evil to save were they? Why do you not say 'Jesus is a monster' for killing 99 people, instead of praising him for saving you? Rank hypocrisy again.

I'll develop my answer a little.Do I think there was a real Jesus. No.Why? OK, first you need to understand quite a bit of background.1. There was no early christian church. There were a number of rival sects which featured Christ in one form or another - often completely different versions.2. Paul was the leader of the sect that eventually 'won' and became what we know today,3. The gospels and Acts of the Apostles were written well after the Jesus character's crucifiction. The earliest gospel was Mark and that probably dates to 80CE give or take. The rest came between 85CE and 130CE.4. Paul was the first part of the NT written. It was written in the 50s-60x CE (or most of it was - some came later, probably after his death, therefore was not the same author obviously).5. Paul never met Jesus. Moreover he never mentions any events from the life of Jesus. When he talks about Christ he is talking about a spirit, not a person. This is inline with the other sects - they had greek-influenced ideas and had particularly picked-up on Plato and his 'cave' allegory. *6. In some of the sects, the Christ figure was purely spirit, in some he was material (and there was at least one weird mix). The idea of a three-god pantheon was common - greeks, egyptians, sumerians - they all had creation myths involving 3 gods of some description, though not a trinity - that was invented in the second century.7. None of the other early books in the new testament mention a physical Jesus or any details of his life. They all talk about the spiritual Christ.8. it is only when the Mark gospel appears that we have any notion of a real Jesus. Now we get the story of Jesus, but most of it is not written literally and there are huge gaps. Mark says nothing about jesus's conception, birth, childhood or early manhood. and concenrtates on the last few weeks of his life. Mark is also very different in content structure and language to the other gospels.Now we start to put it together. Paul wrote a lot everything we know about the early Christians comes from Paul. He was responsible for growing the church until it outgrew or absorbed the rivals and became THE Christian sect.and HE NEVER MET OR KNEW JESUS. That is a key fact. He talks to christ all the time - but this is in visions on the spiritual place and he describes talking to Jesus ONLY in those terms. He never mentions what Jesus - supposed to have been around 20 years before - said, did, believed - nothing. That is simply too strange to have a simple explanation. Paul does mention events in Jesus life on the spiritual plane because many of the 'saviour Son' sects had similar theology - lifted from the Greeks but with some Egyptian and mostly, of course, the source religion - Judaism.So, the theory I currently think is probably right is that whoever wrote mark's gospel (non of the gospels were written by apostles of course, (nor had any of the aurthors ever seen Jesus - too long ago, they were either not born or young kids) invented Jesus as an earthly character - maybe as part of a plan, or maybe simply a personal idea.The physical Jesus is still recognisable as the Son-Saviour figure common to many sects, but now it has a physical saviour instead of one that only existed on the astral/spiritual plane. Another document - the Q source - was also around with a different but similar idea - probably another sect. This is used to write Matthew and Luke. Johm comes last and is different again. All have fundamental differences (despite what you were probably told at school or by others - it is amazing how many people I meet who insist that the bible is totally consistent and accurate. Once I demolish that certainty it can be interesting.In reality we know absolutely nothing about Jesus apart from what is in the gospels and in Acts of the Apostles (also written later with the gospels). The author of mark has done a real number and turned Paul's Christ sect into a special sect - the only one in which the crucifiction happens on the material plane instead of in spirit. Over the next couple of centuries the finer points are tied up or invented and by 300 or so there is a fairly common set of books and beliefs emerging, though still many different sects and beliefs. Mark's gospel version is popular and is adopted into the first semi-official collection of satyings and rules for the Christ sect. matthew and Luke join it with a new account of the life of Jesus and the apostles (Acts) written around this time and also becomming part of the 'cannon'. In the 400s it becomes the official religion of Rome and it never looked back until the middle-ages when Luther kicked-off.The rest is history over centuries, exerting power, retaining control, keeping the peasants in check etc.PS _ Before any outraged Christians leap in and tell me this is wrong, please make sure you know what you are talking about and can talk sense about the history of the church. Otherwise you will end up looking stupid and I'll look like a bully. I don't want either - so trust me when I say this is not just pulled-out of my *bottom*. This is based on serious scholarship and is seriously discussed amongst bible scholars and theologians - not on the conservative/evangelical/creationist wings of course - they are too far gone and too removed from reality to persuade by anything we would recognise as evidence. I don't blame individual creationists but I do blame parents, priests/pastors/preachers televangelism, politicians looking for cheap votes, and thought it saddens me - some teachers.America is the most advanced country with a lot of the stupidest views in the western world. It isn't just religion - conspiracy theory, hatred of federal government, too many damn guns and many other differences exist, but the religious one is a biggie. Most europeans live in largely secular society. Even those that say they are Chrtistian are mostly not really when you ask for detail. It is more of a cross between habit and social club (one of the two things Churches are useful for - bringing communities together). If you asked them to describe what they believed, you'd get 'sort of God', 'something but I don't know', 'not sure, maybe this cosmic force sort of thing', spirits man - we are all astral' and 'Jesus is my Lord and Saviour - but when that last one arrived, the rest of the people would roll their eyes probably. We don't tend to do public religion - even the ones who still believe.We do have a growing number of damn creationists which I spend far too much time tracking qand monitoring - I thoink we probably have you seppos to that for that - thanks for nothing guys - but as long as it doesn't grow much more it will dwindle before too long in the same way as all the other christian sects. Religion will be here for a long time, but it will become more and more of a social thing and less and less about the supernatural - especially after 2025 when life on another planet is discovered and Stephen Markison creates the first useful synthetic life forms.Of course the killer blow will be in 2134 when stormtroopers finally prize the Pope out of Vatican Village with laser bazookas, confiscate the vatican nuclear keys and shut the vatican gates for the last time, after opening the Library up. The few remaining Indian and Chinese diocese will finally go the same way as the rest and refront the building as lifestyle editors - you pay them to trim your lifestyle to match the latest pattern books.That will be it in the west - the Chinese would have been totally secular for a cople of decades, but europe and the US, being only 1st world coutries, will be about 20 yrs behind the new world block.

That is empathy - in fact it would serve as a definition of the word. Empathy is usually defined as 'sharing the feelings or emotions of another'. That fits perfectly.

No I don't. I don't think the matter is proven one way or the other, but I think the balance of probability is that he was invented. No they are most certainly not, Have you read the bible - 'suffer not a witch to live'.Have you read the quran? Kill the infidel. These acts are highly religious and are actually REQUIRED by the bible and the quran. Where do you get these notions from ? Who says that religion was 'brought to dispel ignorance? What is the basis for that claim? Religion traditionally encourages ignorance. Again you need to read the scriptures rather than cherry-picking what you THINK they say. On learning, the bible says: Hardly encouraging ignorance to be dispelled. In fact it was punishable by death to even possess a bible all through the centuries of religious control.

I see no evidence for that assertion. I see a few stories written down which are pretty contradictory and steeped in the superstition of the times.In the middle ages people saw demons everywhere, The literature is full of them. Now we don't. Is that because they were once here and have now vanished? Unlikely. Far more likely that the cultural conditioning made it easy for people to talk about demons and miracles as everyday occurences when in fact they were simply natural phenomena. That is again what religion does - assigns supernatural causes to anything a person doesn't fully understand. It is a profound cop-out and thoroughly intellectually lazy. Just about everything that was once inexplicable and thought therefore to be God's work is now understood and known to be no such thing. Inventing terms like self-prestige is just a semantic game. The ego describes our self awareness and self-esteem without need for another phrase to complicate things. Egoism means being centred on ones own self and of course that is bad thing. it has nothing to do with having a healthy ego, rather the opposite. It is more symptomatic of early damage to the ego which is now self-obsessed, You seem to have a world view where you see equal explanations and all that is needed is for both to accept each other. It isn't like that. In reality one explanation is always better than another and the weaker explanation should be discarded in favour of the more accurate. If someone tells me that their alternative medicine is better than scientific drugs I wait to see where they go when they are properly ill. They ALWAYS go for the modern drugs - at least we only see the ones that do because the others usually die. We have a word for alternative medicine that works. We call it medicine. Not only is there absolutely serious doubt about the existence of God, i think the case is overwhelming that there is no such thing. In any conflict between superstition and science then 'backing down' is simply not an option. It is another way of saying 'accept superstition and go back in time to when disease was usually fatal, to when old women were burned as witches, to when Christians set of in the name of the Pope to murder as many Muslims as possible and earn time-off in purgatory. Religion has nothing to say about the universe worth knowing. it contributes nothing to the sum of human knowledge. The only positive things it does have are tricks and methods of bringing people together and giving a sense of community. These are valuable and should be retained. The supernatural stuff, however, needs to be junked.

Then they are simply wrong, it is that simple. Reality is not democratic - reality doesn't change just because you think it does or want it to. What we measure is real. The predictions and achievements of science are REAL. If someone believes that science is wrong then let them show THEIR model and I am willing to bet a large amount that it will be demolished.People somehow seem to think that their opinion is important in science, or with regard to what is true. It is a phenomenon sometimes called Post Modernism or relativism and it is advanced by moral idiots and scientific ignoramuses. Science is not 'just the laws of nature'. Science is the philosophy, the method we use to find out and investigate those laws. The scientific method is what science is. No it isn't. Our brains have been this big for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. We barely developed at all for a huge part of that. Then the Greeks took civilisation to a height and the Church knocked it down and kept it down for 1500 years so that by the 16th century we knew less about the universe than the Greeks did in 400 BCE,What do we call the period when the church had absolute rule in Europe - say 1st Century CE to 1500CE? We call it the DARK AGES. What do we call the arrival of critical thinking and the resulting exposion in the arts, philosophy, literature? We call it the Enlightenment. The more religion retreats the better. The most ethical countries in the world are the most secular - the Nordic countries for example. The most morally bankrupt places on earth are highly religious. Just about any islamic state can be used as an example. Living standards have risen with the march of science and the retreat of primitive superstitions. Look around the world. Who is killing and why? Religion everywhere you look. What is modern 'civilised' Western religion doing? Telling Africans that condoms will give them AIDS and that it is better to die of AIDS than burn in hell for using a condom. Meanwhile many of it's clergy raped young boys in their care and their bishops were busy telling people not to tell the parents or the police on pain of excommunication, with the current Pope - Ratzinger - busy writing to Bishops telling them that they could not talk to anyone except the Vatican about the matter, again on pain of excommunication. Yet people kiss his ring and cry-out his name in reverence instead of putting him in a cell where he belongs. Rghteousness? Don't make me laugh. . Show me a moderate Muslim and I'll show you someone who was screaming for people to be murdered for writing a book or drawing a cartoon. Even that most genteel and civilised religion - so laid back it can scarecely be called a religion, (The Church of England) with priests who are openly atheists, what are they doing? Debating if their bigotry towards homosexuals will continue for a few more decades. Deciding whether it is finally time to end the inherent sexism of the institution. Proposing that britian might need to consider Sharia Law to appease Muslims. In the most technologically advanced society in the world over half the population have been persuaded that the world is a few thousand years old, that evolution is 'just a theory', that the world will end in the next 30 years or so, that they will rise into the sky and watch the destruction of all the non-Christians. They BELIEVE THIS CRAP. That is what religion does, it turns what should be modern intelligent people into bronze-age morons. Righteousness? I'm tempted to think you must be having a joke. A pox on all religion. Progress has come with science and because of science. That is the reason pure and simple. I know a fair amount about doping thanks and it requires no God. You keep asserting that Nature created this and nature created that as if Nature is a 'thing'. Nature is just the laws of physics. We have silicon because it is one of the elements that form in stars under high compression and temperature. No God required. Silicon has it's particular conduction propeties because of the electron structure which is understood and predicted by quantum mechanics - no God required. Doping creates and fills charge 'holes' and causes quantum tunnelling - no God required.We have stars because our universe eventually cooled from an initial state and matter condensed. No God required. The only role for any possible creator would be in starting the big bang. Everything else is better explained by science without introducing sky-fairies. And now we have scientific models for the 'start' which make even the role of Big bang 'starter' un-necessary - no God required. As science has moved on, the space for God has shrunk until he now clings on by a divine fingernail. it is time, for the sanity of the species, that he let go. If you really believe that then you really need to read some history. You have heard of Galileo I take it? Would you like a list of early thinkers that the church murdered, the books they banned? the discussions they ruled to be out of order or heretical?

I object to that, I have a reasonable training in, and understanding of, philosophy and I will not be patronised by theists of whatever religion. Hinduism isn't actually well defined enough to stand much chance of being contradictory. As you will no doubt know, from philosophy, the chances for contradiction increase in proportion to the distinct assertions or propositions. Hinduism seems to me to make very few assertions and therefore stand little chance of being self-contradictory. That is not an argument necessarily in its favour. There are theist Hindus and there are atheist Hindus so I don't accept that it does not deviate from monotheism at all. This strikes me as either a particularly exclusive statement or an example of the 'no true scotsman' fallacy.

Personally I think that part of Buddhism is simply wrong, but I see what it is getting at. We can easily mistake attachment for love. A good example is my dogs. They are attached to me and one might even say that they 'love' me, but I reject that notion, because 'love' is more than simple attachment. Having said that, since I am a rational person I am quite happy to say that love is probably a myth in the way we use the word. There is infatution, respect, caring - these are real. Love is probably nothing more than a combination of these focussed on one person.

Science is not the source of anything. Science is a method. it is a way of examining the universe and working out how it works. The scientific model of creation is far from perfect and there is much we don't yet understand. it is, however, vastly superior to anything that religion has come up with - I mean, talking serpents? A universe in 6 days? Sheer nonsense. Also, beware ad-populum. By that I mean - the fact that 80% of the world population is religious (if indeed that is true) means precisely nothing. A couple of thousand years ago nearly the entire population of the world believed that it was flat. Does that tell you ANYTHING about the real shape of the world? That is so wrong I hardly know where to start. Yes, science is interested in truth - that is why scientific statements must be testable. Science is the reason that you are alive. Without it your ancestors would have starved to death before you were born. Science is the reason you don't die when you get ill. Science has increased your life expectancy from 20 to 60-80 (depending on where you live) - in other words you can thank science for the fact that you will live many times longer than your ancestors, are many times healthier, and not die from trivial infection.I find your attitude a little ungrateful.If the world was left to religion then none of this would have happened, People had to fight religion - with many of them dying - in order to get to where we are now. Religion has tried to stop science at every stage, from Galileo onwards. It is a parasitic belief system that requires ignorance in order to survive. I think Christopher Hitchens (rest in peace) put it very well when he said that religion was our first attempt to understand the world. We have now developed science which is a much better tool for doing that, which means that religion is really obsolete. Some people try to say that 'science tells us how and religion tells us why'. But that is not correct. Science tells us how, for sure. Increasingly, however, it also tells us why. The relatively new field of neuroscience is making big strides into our understanding of the brain and how 'mind' works. We are even beginning to understand why people have religious beliefs. Ultimately I believe that most, if not all, of the universe will be explained by science. Some people think that is bad, that it removes some 'beauty' from the world if we understand it. I think they are mad. I think Richard Feynman said it best: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

What you are doing is known as an 'appeal to ignorance'. In other words, 'we don't know how, therefore God did it'. It is a terrible way to think and is responsible for a huge amount of suffering and death.As for life? Start by defining your terms. What do you mean by life? The egg is 'alive' before fertilisation, as is the sperm. There is no point at which the two suddenly become another life - it is a gradual process. If you think of life as a binary thing - either yes or no - then you get into all sorts of problems. Is a bacteria alive? What about a virus? it is not a useful way to think.As for Jesus - I've done quite a lot of research and diging around that topic. I haven't yet come to any firm conclusions but my working hypothesis is that he never existed (and I have very good reasons for thinking that, which I'm perfectly willing to share but it would take a long long posting). What makes you say that Jesus emphasised confession? Where does that idea come from?Ego doesn't make us only think of ourselves - that is egotism. Ego is essential and we all have one. A person with low self-esteem is no use to anyone, not even themselves. Ego doesn't cause people to hurl abuse - that is more likely to be the opposite. People who are unsure of themselves are FAR more likely to react in stupid ways than people who have a strong sense of who they are. Until you know who you are, how can you possibly make good decisions about other people? Empathy comes from ego - it is the realisation that I am a person who likes some things and not others, therefore maybe other people ALSO like some things and not others. Therefore maybe I should treat people like I want to be treated. And voila - you have the 'golden rule' which religions dishonestly claim that they invented.

Sensible people don't have books on creation. Those are for people who can't or won't read proper science books.There is no creator and therefore no such mystery. It goes like this:nothing ->quantum fluctuation -> spacetime, energy matter and gravity (which adds up to nothing since gravity cancels with energy and matter).So, we start with nothing and we still are nothing - just arranged interestingly. No need nor room for a deity - that would overly complicate a wonderfully elegant system which works fine without some sky-fairy twiddling nobs.

Nope - that is the bit I do not buy. I like being happy - that is sort of the point. Yes, I know it is transitory but I'm fine with that. I believe that I am also transitory so there is no issue with pleasure being so.Of course one can get over attached, or even obsessed, with materialistic possessions. That is, I agree, bad. But my pleasures tend to not be to do with collecting material. One of my greatest pleasures is to read in the bath with a glass of wine and something to smoke. A fairly simple pleasure, and as far as I can see it does me good, in that it puts me in a good mood and relaxes both muscle and mind.As I said earlier, there are some parts of Buddhism that I am fine with. There are other parts that seem to me to be little diferent to the superstitious nonsense found in other faith systems.

God IS a superstition. I don't honestly see how one can arrive at a rational case for the existence of God. At some point there must be an irrational step because the end belief, in some sort of super-natural being (which any God must surely be) is itselt irrational (it is not the product of empiricism or logic). Point one was not meant to imply that people judge - I understand that God does the judging and that is what I object to. If a Catholic, for example, kills my Dog, all he'she need do is attend confession. Their sin will now be forgiven after a few Hail Marys. Now, the offence was against me, not God. I didn't notice God paying the vet bills or buying the dog food. Yet I am completely bypassed in assigning forgiveness. The only person who can morally grant forgiveness is ME not some sky fairy. Point two - Jesus does not say 'when you are ready'. He says 'right now'. The message is clear - drop everything an follow me. That means abandoning moral responsibilities such as dependents and is therefore an immoral thing to do. Point three - all I see here is assertion. Jesus doesn't seem special to me. He is often narky, frequently incoherent, sometimes downright nasty and doesn't display any great wisdom or knowledge. Let me put it this way - if an omniscient and omnipotent being set out to produce a scripture, would he/she/it really only be able to manage what we see in the bible - a flawed and contradictory account which is so basically unclear that people have been, and still are, fighting over the meaning almost since it was first produced. If an omniscient being really DID write a book, it would be impossible not to be awe-struck at the contents. It would speak of things that we have no inkling of, and do so in testable and obvious language. It would tell us things that could not have been known otherwise....and so on. The bible gets nowhere near any of this. It is all too obviously the work of humans, with all their flaws. Point four - you miss my point I think. Even the most saintly person occasionally thinks bad thoughts. I know that I do, and more than 'occasionall'. Jesus, through Matthew, tells us explicitly that those thoughts can and will be punished. That is horrific - far worse than anything in Orwell's 1984. Thought crime, pure and simple. I don't see how the fist follows and I'm not even sure about the second. Believe me, some of the most egotistical people I know are also some of the stupidest. I don't think that intelligence over-inflates the ego. Any truly intelligent person is well aware of their own limitations. It is the ignorant or foolish who does not know those limits. Of course some briliant people may be egomaniacs, but others are actually self-hating hermits.Nor do I see how a large ego would prevent forgiveness. I can well imagine very egotistical people being very keen on forgiving people - it makes them look good and feeds the hungry ego yet more.

I do that anyway without any need for mysticism. I have no problem with people using techniques like meditation to relax - I do myself. I learned a form of meditation many years ago - nothing fancy, you just slow the breathing and with each exhale you fix your mind on a part of the body. I start with the left toes, work up the calf and leg, down the other leg, back up the right side of the body and arm - then the left, finally the face and head.It usually works for me and I can get very deeply relaxed using it. No problem with that at all, but there is nothing mystical about it, just focussed attention and relaxing muscles.It is one thing to teach a technique for relaxation or focussing concentration. It is quite another to attribute the technique to some woo-woo pseudo-science or some invisible sky-fairy because then you are saying that which it is not possible for you to be sure of, yet not expressing it as a possibility but as a fact. I have a BIG problem with that.So (to go back to Buddhism) I have no problem with the idea of (temporarily) seeking curcease - the calm achieved by letting go of all material wants and urges. But I have a major problem with the notion of Karma and, it goes without saying, the notion of rebirth. That is when technique and explanation give way to speculation and guesswork, things that the Buddhist cannot possibly know for sure, yet teaches as though it were fact.Let me ask you this:If I could teach a technique to pass exams, but the technique involved teaching you something as fact that I KNEW was a lie, would you want to learn? Would it be moral of me to teach it? Does the advantage offered outweigh the immorality of lying?For me it never can. Once we play fast and loose with truth - either pretending we have it when we cannot possibly have it, or ignoring it for other advantage - then we are in trouble.