A poster from Amazon discussion group posted the following paragraph from an article.

... It (religion) re-configures our neural pathways, turning altruism into instinct, through the rituals we perform, the texts we read and the prayers we pray. It remains the most powerful community builder the world has known. Religion binds individuals into groups through habits of altruism, creating relationships of trust strong enough to defeat destructive emotions. Far from refuting religion, the Neo-Darwinists have helped us understand why it matters... Religion is the best antidote to the individualism of the consumer age. The idea that society can do without it flies in the face of history and, now, evolutionary biology. This may go to show that God has a sense of humor. It certainly shows that the free societies of the West must never lose their sense of God."

The more I read this paragraph, the more mistakes I can find. I shall try to pick it apart.

It (religion) re-configures our neural pathways

This is true for *any* repetitive actions. This is just the way our brains work. Religious activities are no exception.

turning altruism into instinct

There is no evidence for this. Good people do good things and bad people do bad things. It is just the nature of human being. There is no "more" altruistic behaviour from religious people than non-believers. e.g. Kiva's atheists group remains the all time largest lender almost doubling that of the next one - Christian group. h

the prayers we pray

Prayers do not work and they have become the alternative to offering real help. It may make the believers feel better to satisfy their natural urge to help - but there is no real help offered.

It remains the most powerful community builder the world has known.

Because religion has institutionalized promoters. Religion is like those who sell cigarette. Smoking is a bad choice, from the personal health point of view. But there are big organizations interested to get people continue to smoke.

Religion binds individuals into groups

Religion divide people into you and us. Wars have started and atrocities done in the name of religion.

creating relationships of trust strong enough to defeat destructive emotions

Other supportive friendship can do the same minus the superstition.

Far from refuting religion, the Neo-Darwinists have helped us understand why it matters.

No! Social science has helped us understand why religion happens. Religion matters to the ruling class - a mechanism for controlling the common people.

Religion is the best antidote to the individualism of the consumer age.

Really? The whole Christmas shopping is NOT a promotion of consumerism, right!

The idea that society can do without it flies in the face of history

I think it is time to demonstrate that the society is actually better off without religion. The society health index correlates inversely with religiosity. That should be an indicator that this sentence is a BS.

This may go to show that God has a sense of humor.

My god may have a sense of humour. ;-) Definitely not the bible god from the OT.

It certainly shows that the free societies of the West must never lose their sense of God.

God helps the West! ;-)

Is human culture unique?

Culture is defined as behaviour acquired from learning from the peers. In this case, chimpanzee societies cultures.








Also published simultaneously at Random Walk in Learning

Guns and Violence

In the wake of the Newtown school shooting, the powerful American Gun group is coming out and blame the violence to the movies, video games and so on.

But does such blame stand up to fact check?


When you are accustom to hang on to your belief without evidence, you cannot think straight. In this gun control debate, what do you think?

The most important thing is to look at the evidence. Facts are inconvenient when they are not on your side. But you choice is NOT to ignore them. The correct way is to accept the facts and make decision based on the facts.

Christians, are you disappointed that Jesus did not come?

Well, they were so sure...


Now, everywhere on Earth has passed 21st December 2012, what next?

Life goes on and the world did not end, stupid!

Three Strikes of Injustice

Horrible Injustice: HSBC Above Laws, Woman Gets Life Sentence

The world did not end yesterday

Oh, it was just a joke. Now seriously,...

Season Greeting

Please accept, and/or renew, without obligation, implied or implicit, the best wishes, referred to as this greeting hereafter, for an environmentally friendly, socially responsible, politically correct, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, non-specific sexuality, celebration of the winter solstice holiday in the northern hemisphere and summer solstice holiday in the southern hemisphere, practised within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your preference, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. This greeting, without implied obligations also extends to cover a financially successful, personally fulfilling, emotionally enchanting and stimulating, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2013, but with due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures or sects, in a world filled with love, peace, joy, harmony, diversity, tolerant, good will, rational thinking, respect and happiness, clean air and plenty of water, less pollution, reduced green house gases, and having regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or dietary preference of the wishee.

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[2013 edition]

Pope Benedict XVI Tightens Church Control Over Catholic Charities

As I have noted before, Catholic charities are their marketing department.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Bishops must exercise closer supervision over Catholic charities and ensure that their activities do not contradict church doctrine, according to new rules issued by Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday (Dec. 1).

The new guidelines state that charities with links to the church must "follow Catholic principles in their activity" and may not "accept commitments" that could undermine those principles in any way.

They also bar charities from accepting funding "from groups or institutions that pursue ends contrary to the church's teaching" or for initiatives that are "not in conformity with the Church's teaching."

...

Some bishops say Catholic charities shouldn't accept money from groups like the Gates Foundation. According to Snyder, the effect of the new rules in such cases "will depend greatly on the individual bishop's interpretation." [source]

In this case, they should not accept tax exempt status from secular governments such as USA and Australia.

Should Burqa Be Banned in Our Societies?

The faceless protesters caused a bit of anger from some Sydney citizens


The uploader said the men attacking the protesters are Muslims. I cannot confirm that. But why so angry?









A debate on TV in Australia here on the issue:





Should Burqa Be Banned in Our Societies?

A Voice Is Silenced

Jesus alive

Walking on water, not a problem. Really?

Do we need god to be fair?

Is there a monkey god watching these monkeys? If monkeys can be fair, why we human needs a god to make us moral?

RICHARD DAWKINS: Sex, Death And The Meaning Of Life

Australian Catholic Church finally admits to child sexual abuse

It takes a parliamentary inquiry to force the Catholic church to face the fact...

Child Abuse: Are All Catholics Complicit?

True News: Catholic Child Abuse

The failure to report child abuse cases is systemic, worldwide. This is NOT a careless neglect of responsibility.

Catholic Child Abuse Inquiry

This is not news - Catholic church goes to the extreme to protect their priests rather than the victims. The church is claiming naivety - oh yeah, under the guidance of the all knowing god, they are still naive. What a lame excuse.

The Victoria Inquiry (in Australia) officially started today. Here is the ABC's news report on the deputy police commissioner Graham Ashton's submission. Channel nine's report is here. Out of the almost 400 reported crimes by the victims, the church has referred NONE to the police. If it is NOT the evidence that the Church is protecting the abusive priests, I do not know what is.

It is about time...

My friends in USA,

It is about time for you to start questioning the ability of making evidence-based decisions from your Presidential candidates. If they cannot see the logical fallacy in believing in a god, what chance do you have for them to make sensible decisions on your behalf?

Please someone ask the candidates the following question:

"What is the logical fallacy in believing that there is a god?"

OK, I know political election is not about finding the best candidate, but the above question should start appearing in the media... Don't you think?

Christian Marriage Standards

[source]

When superstition triumphs over reason...

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), a physician, with an M.D. and a B.S. in chemistry, is either very poor scientist/physician or a great liar. Young Earth is NOT supported by any evidence except from the old book.

All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell,” Broun said. “And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior. You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth,” he said. “I don’t believe that the Earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says. [source]

The coming demise of USA is not caused by China or any other developing countries. The leaders of USA are rotting as her crisis continues to deepen. Paul Broun is but one of the more extreme. The full video is here. The above extract is at about 34 minutes.

Islam is a crime against humanity

Innocence of Muslims

The full movie itself is here:


The trailer (14 mins) is here:


Poor production value, tricked the actors to perform for the film and then changed the script in editing,....

But

Many definitions of art have been proposed by philosophers and others who have characterized art in terms of mimesis, expression, communication of emotion, or other values. - source

Some arts are meant to provoke. For example Leon Golub's 'Interrogation III'

Bad as the movie may be, as an art, it has succeeded in provoking reactions. It has successfully revealed the violence nature of Islam. Those who murdered the USA Ambassador should be brought to justice. There is simply no excuse to murder an innocent person just because your belief has been ridiculed.

Muslims insecurity

Recently riots by the Muslims in the light of the USA film is an indication of how insecure they are with their religion. They know deep in their hearts that the whole Islam thingy is indefensible in reason. So they resort to violence.

What does Christianity teach us in modern days?

First a quote

A 1994/95 survey of nearly 10,000 abortion patients showed 18% of women having abortions are born-again or Evangelical Christians. Many of these women are likely anti-choice. The survey also showed that Catholic women have an abortion rate 29% higher than Protestant women. A Planned Parenthood handbook on abortion notes that nearly half of all abortions are for women who describe themselves as born-again Christian, Evangelical Christian, or Catholic. - Joyce Arthur

If you like to get more into the pro-life/pro-choice debate, read what some medical doctors have to say here. Now an excerpt from Genesis

Then God said: Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you. Genesis 22:2

When believers were asked if the same event would happen to their neighbour, what would they do? Many correctly pointed out that their neighbour would need help because of the psychological illusion of god talking to them and trying to kill his child. My question is how Christian can cope with such cognitive dissonance. When probed a little deeper, they argued that Abraham did not actually kill Issac. It was only god's temptation of Abraham's faith only. Christians ignored that trauma of Issac going through almost being killed by his father. There are also a lot of deeds that modern civilized person would not do. For example we don't stone a disobedient child.

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear. Deuteronomy 21:18-21

When confronted with this, many believers argue either one of the following two; (1) it only applies to the Jews, not them; or (2) it is in the old testament. Since Jesus, these laws are not abandoned. On the notion of human sacrifice, does Christianity condone human sacrifice? Many Christians would argue that Christianity does not. How how they deal with the following bible verse?

Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD: "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering." Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into his hands. He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon. When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, "Oh! My daughter! You have made me miserable and wretched, because I have made a vow to the LORD that I cannot break." "My father," she replied, "you have given your word to the LORD. Do to me just as you promised, now that the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. But grant me this one request," she said. "Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry." "You may go," he said. And he let her go for two months. She and the girls went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. After the two months, she returned to her father and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin. From this comes the Israelite custom that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite. Judges 11:29-40

Many argued that the burnt offering of this unnamed girl is metaphorical. The girl actually ended up serving the lord in the temple. So there was no human sacrifice. Of course, we never knew if the first to meet Jephthah was not his daughter, but a lowly servant, what would have happened. But Christianity has a big human sacrifice all along - that is Jesus. In order to forgive, the Christian god demanded the sacrifice of the prefect. So the god became man - that's Jesus and offered himself killed. Of course, at the end, the story goes that Jesus was resurrected. Does that count as a human sacrifice noting that Jesus was also fully human and resurrected as god? The human part of Jesus was killed. All these come back to the first quote in this post. The biggest moral Christianity has taught modern believers is hypocrisy. What do you think?

Moral Guide

Yes, as social animals, we have evolved to know what is good and what is bad. We are the higher source of moral authority than those old books.

Slavery and Islam

Whether the claim in the video is true or not, I do not know. However, the part that religion enslaves minds is undeniable.

Why I left Islam

1. There is no infallible book... 2. Muslim murdered her professor in front of class Substituting one type of drug with another... 3. Conscience won... and dancing to be a reborn Christian

Modern slavery

Why there is still slavery in this modern world? Why an all good all mighty god would allow this to happen? In the clip below, "Kevin Bales explains the business of modern slavery, a multibillion-dollar economy that underpins some of the worst industries on earth. He shares stats and personal stories from his on-the-ground research"... and sex slaves are also here... [source: TED]

The Math of the Great Flood

Here is a "theory" of how the flood occurred - it sounds logical, ... except that there is no evidence to support such a theory.

Christian Justics - a question

Dog's god

First God made heaven & earth....Then God said, "Let us make dog in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." So God created dog in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Atheists More Motivated by Compassion

"Overall, this research suggests that although less religious people tend to be less trusted in the U.S., when feeling compassionate, they may actually be more inclined to help their fellow citizens than more religious people," Willer said. source

I have shown the same conclusion from the statistics of Kiva.org. As the time of this writing this post, Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious team has loaned slightly over 7 million while the runner-up, the Kiva Christians has loaned about 4 million. Compassion and empathy, a result of evolution for social animals, are the primary driving forces for charitable deeds. This holds true for both religious and irreligious people. However, when religion started to divide people based on a belief, the result is limiting charitable deeds to a "closer" group and overlooks the bigger picture.

Abraham The Delusional Schizophrenic

A nun arrives at the gates of hell...

So, God, How Is Earth Doing?

Craig_s Calamitous Cock-Up -- Bayes_ Theorem and the resurre

There was a debate between William Lane Craig vs Bart Ehrman on the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection. About 40 minutes into the debate, Craig pulled out a probability proof that it would be more probable for the resurrection of Jesus.


Was Craig's mathematics correct?
Here is someone who really knows mathematics - probability in fact!

Moroccan girl, 16, kills herself because judge forced her to marry her RAPIST

When superstition trumps reasons,...

Religion and Cigarrette

Religion	Cigarrette
Apply to gullible persons	Apply to the addicts
personal choice	personal choice
bad for society	bad for personal health
There are lots of invested interests by some organisations with self interests	There are lots of invested interests by some organisations with self interests
Society still needs to see the damage of religion	smoking is now banned in many public places in modern society

EricJames Borges

The Daily Mail reports 19-year-old Eric James Borges killed himself on January 14 following his family issues, as well as the typical years of torment at school.

He revealed the exorcism story in an "It's Get Better" video that he put on YouTube in the weeks before his suicide, saying "'I was raised in an extremist Christian household... My mother knew I was gay and performed an exorcism on me in an attempt to cure me. My anxiety, depression, self-loathing and suicidal thoughts spiked."

At a memorial service last week in the San Joaquin Valley, California, one friend read from his suicide note:

My pain is not caused because I am gay. My pain was caused by how I was treated because I am gay. To my friends you gave me life and love, never think this was your fault...To Lady Gaga, you have been a fearless relentless proud LGBT advocate.

Ironically, Borges interned at the Trevor Project, which is a group designed to intervene and help gay kids who are thinking about suicide.[source]

Warren Buffett is anti-catholic because he....

Warren Buffett is anti-catholic because he

1. has spent a fortune funding radical abortion organizations like NARAL and Planned Parenthood
2. comment that the rich should pay higher taxes
3. has given hundreds of millions over the years to anti-Catholic front groups
[according to source]

No wonder catholics keep their treasure in the Vatican and refuse to share with the needy.

Is this billboard offensive?

No, I do not think so.

Yes, human exists is the combination of a lot of chances and it is better we understand this.

If there is one thing needs to be changed, it would be the word 'believes". Atheist does not believe. The position of atheism is because there is not sufficient evidence to support the other position (that god exists). The evidences of we being here by an accident are abundant, just take a course in cosmology and evolution biology - a proper course, I mean.

Senseless murder

Click on the title which will lead you to a graphic burning of witches. How can anyone do this to another human being?

Maddness

The blackman was insane, but the Catholic Priest was no better. Where is all the science, where is our understanding of our position in the Solar System and the Universe?

"According to biblical record...." the worse evidence for believing in such nonsense.

Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus

Please watch till the end of the video!

There is finally a relgion I can whole-hearted support - Kopimi

Swedish authorities have granted official religious status to the Church of Kopimism, which claims it considers CTRL+C and CTRL+V to be sacred symbols, and that information is holy and copying is a sacrament.

According to the Church of Kopimism website, church services consist of "kopyactings," whereby the "kopimists" share information with each other through copying and remixing.

Bertil Kallner of Sweden's Financial and Administrative Services told the Swedish newspaper Gagens Nyheter that a religious community could "basically be anything."

"What's important is that it is a community for religious activities," he said.

Still, it took the Church of Kopimism three tries over the course of a year before members were able to formalize their way of praying or meditation so that they could be recognized as an official religion. [source]

Hypocritic double standard - William Lane Craig