Faith is everything to religion - and useless

I'll probably do a video about this, but thought I'd give it a test run here and see how it plays. So, think of yourself as a test subject. I'm really hoping one or two Christians will stop in and comment, because I'd love to read what they have.

I'm going to propose some things and ask a few questions. What I hope to show is that the only reason for god beliefs is faith, and that faith is totally untrustworthy, no matter how strongly one feels it.

Based on the world-view or, I suppose more accurately, the universe-view of a believer in Yahweh/Christ as generally told in the OT and NT, is there any way that you arrive at your convictions other than faith? If so, please explain. Answers such as "The Bible" or "personal experience" are still taken on faith, since there is no consensus on the biblical reliability and no way to demonstrate your experience.

If in fact the real story is - Satan is the "Master of the Universe", he takes delight in our sufferings and floundering around here on earth, created the "Yahweh/Christ" myth specifically to deceive hopeful fools into thinking Christ is their salvation - is there any way your faith can rule this out as a possibility?

You already accept the notion of Lucifer as a clever, powerful deceiver of humankind. To assert that he is just a little more powerful than you thought, should not be a stretch. What if the Holy Bible is just one of his many deceits and that he arbitrarily administers doses of happiness for sake of the charade? How would you know this is not so? If your reason for "knowing" is only your faith in Christ, and if Christ was manufactured by a cruel entity, your faith would seem meaningless, right?

The problem, it seems to me, is that you have no empirical knowledge of god and no other way of "knowing" can be seen as reliable. When you really examine your beliefs, faith in them is all you have. Is there any evidence anywhere that it is ever a dependable form of "knowledge"?

God Requires Science

From one of my favorite channels on YouTube - BionicDance. This one goes out to some of my favorite employers of "tortured logic". Think of this as a bit of an add-on to the recent post by Spanish Inquisitor: The Existence of God. If anyone is still unclear what SI meant when asking for evidence, hopefully this can at least clear up those questions.

Fucking Hilarious!

Check out Jerry Coyne's contest - and read the responses! Goddamn, free-thinkers are so creative.

Prosecuting Cheney

A lot of us have called for an investigation of the Bush administration, but Obama has been tiptoeing around it for six months. It was really looking like it was highly improbable to say the least. And I haven't heard any calls for it yet, but this new information might be exactly what it takes to get the ball rolling. And, I'll guarantee you, if the ball starts rolling - it won't stop until it gets to the bottom. This is the last thing Cheney needed.

Not an image of Jesus

H/T to reader Thorum.

What do you think?

"Any fact claim unsupported by empirical evidence can justly be treated as a product of the imagination."

Is this a fair statement? If it is not, what is the objection?

Atheist Bloggers - Persevere!

There are many anecdotal examples of former believers who have become atheist or agnostic in the past decade, and many who claim to have dropped faith after reading one of the recent best-sellers on atheism or from online discussions. It feels like you aren't ever getting through to folks, but I've argued for a long time that you can not judge the success of your rational arguments based on the hope that someone will thank you personally for deconverting them!

I look at what I do as similar to tossing seeds along a barren stretch of land. Maybe if I came back in 5 or 10 years, I'd see some beautiful trees. The story in this video encourages me (like many such stories do) to keep tossing seeds. I'm walking through the barren land anyway. I have nothing to lose.