Atheists are mentally ill

[Angrboda]

I think this guy's a troll.

Loquaciously expressive for the species though.

You don't say!

[Whateverist]

..you're making all these naturalist assumptions about the nature of reality. You get to the resurrection once these assumptions have been cleared away. And they are just assumptions they don't necessarily just represent the "scientific worldview" or the "default setting "everyone is born with and you must maintain this primal rational purity or whatever. The existence of God is a fully rational and scientifically compatible concept and the association of miraculous events and a loving human relationship with this God is a fully rational and scientifically compatible concept as well. Nothing about the nature of reality would be violated if this is in fact the nature of reality. On this understanding you can accept the resurrection of Christ and the empty tomb and our eternal salvation through the grace and love of God, which is the central "Good News" of the gospels.

I only disagree that once you avoid the naturalist assumptions, the resurrection is inevitable. Better to say it is as good but no better than what you arrive at by beginning from the naturalist assumptions. No matter whether you assert God, no god or some other god from the start, you will have so compromised your ability to fairly assess the situation as to render your judgment irrelevant. Rather than state this yourself, you prefer to argue that the manner in which you compromise yourself is superior. Why not just say in all honesty that you like it because it suits you better personally? There is absolutely no sense in which the resurrection of Jesus is an inescapable conclusion of a fair assessment. It is just the result of the equally bad assumptions you make going in.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

Let me remind you what happened:
you: all morality and good things came from Christ.

No it comes God who provides with the Moral Law. Deviation from the Moral Law results in sin and potentially evil. Not that sin automatically means evil what it means is "to make a mistake". It so happens of course that Christ is God, as described in John 1:3 here we go.

"All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being."

So naturally the morality of Jesus the Christ is also the morality of God himself right there. Everything he taught is what God taught us. So that's what I'm what I'm saying here.

me: what about countries that have other religions?
you: all those religions are similar to Christianity that's why.
me: if they are Christianity stole from them because they predate Christianity.
you: The parts where they're similar they got from the holy spirit, others they just got it wrong.

Well yes, otherwise they're all equally as valid but that would be something of a knockout punch you would be delivering if you could demonstrate that. But if you can name a faith I could tell you a reason why Christianity is better and you would probably agree with me. That's the test right there.

1. When speaking to nonChristians, you can quote scripture like it's a fact if you like, but it's a waste of time.
2. They're all equally valid, because they all equally do not have evidence that their god(s) were anything more than humans. (None of them are valid)
3. I've said this before, making more sense than religions is not something to boast about.

Like really? So every religion in this world that preached anything you agree with came from the holy spirit, and if they preached anything that you disagree with they got that part wrong. YOU DON'T KNOW THAT. You're just saying that because you cannot explain why morality is so similar in different cultures and you're twisting reality to attribute all the "good things" to your god.

Again if you want to propose a religion/religious founding figure with the superior morality and view of life you can have a go.

None of them have to be true for yours to be untrue. All the religions can be wrong. And in case you haven't noticed, atheist forum. ATHEIST forum. We tend not to think much of religions.

Virgin birth is in the bible.

So is Noah's Ark you don't have believe 100% the entire whole thing. The birth narrative to me seems largely symbolic anyway and it's in only two of the four gospels. This was an open question historically within the Church and the Catholics only officially accepted it as dogma in the 19th century. I would tend to believe he had a normal human birth if like us he was a normal human man. There is an argument that this wouldn't make him "supernatural enough" to be the Messiah but I would say being fully one with God as God as part of the Trinity makes him more than supernatural enough as he is. The Old Testament prophecy that says the Messiah will be born of a virgin can be read as "young woman" the Hebrew word for virgin and young woman being one and the same. But id someone wants to have faith as Christian that he was born of a virgin I think that's perfectly fine, perhaps he was who knows? But that's my view on that.

If you want to treat something as true because it is in the bible, then everything in the bible has to be true.

It can be true in the sense that it's an archetypal hero myth narrative that sets the scene of the coming of Christ into the world and humanities ultimate salvation through him. There are questionable doubts over there was a census of all Roman citizens to their home towns to be fair. But there is true and there is true. The Bible isn't a book of Harry Potter it's the word of God in some sense or other.

You claimed that there were eyewitness accounts of jesus's resurrection because it was recorded in the bible. You were the one who treated the bible as a an accurate source of history, not me. You have to stay consistent with that or you need to come up with extrabiblical sources that talked about the resurrection as a historical event.

Actually you're so dishonest you'll probably try to sneak this in again and again. But ummm ... no. If virgin birth can be written but did not happen, then the same goes for the resurrection. Did not happen.

No because there is a good case that the resurrection did actually happen. That is the only miracle you really have to believe in to be a Christian. It may not have happened exactly as described and the original accounts seem to end at the discovery of the empty tomb. The resurrection account being added slightly later. But either way that's the main event there anything else is a bit academic.

This is another one of those things where you say something you have no evidence for, right?

Until you prove the bible to be a true account of history, there were no eyewitness reports. I've already said they're equally ridiculous, you don't believe that because you grew up in a culture where so many people believe in it, but it is equally ridiculous.

There is true accounts of history in there and we know of Christianity and it's origins as a historical event. There is some metaphor and symbolism in there as well and the gospel of John is particularly heavy with this. But it does give the first full account of the Trinity and Christs divine status.

Because your position is that the resurrection happened because it's written in the bible that people saw it happened, the entire book has to be historically accurate, and you need to prove that it is before your claim of the resurrection is even valid.

No I don't. No it wasn't, you haven't showed that it was.

The beginning of Christianity as a movement within Judaism wasn't a historical event? Or you mean the life and crucifixion of a man called Jesus (Yeshua) of Nazareth wasn't a historical event? The discovery of the empty tomb wasn't an historical event? (if it wasn't why didn't someone just point out the body still inside there?) You mean Saint Paul's vision on the road to Damascus and his mission to the Gentiles wasn't an historical event? I think you find it all was but you have to explain all these details and all this came to be without it being any kind of significant supernatural event from God. There is quite a lot there to explain there. Now other religions have some kind of hazy origin lost in the vast reaches of ancient history or are based on some guy who said some stuff. What they say may well be very good, but lets see them return to life from death and say something. There has to be something to distinguish the genuine article from the competition and that is why the resurrection of Christ is critical. If that didn't happen then Christianity is a croc, and says this in the NT itself.

Yea I meant all that. Give me evidence other than the bible that said all that happened. Btw, that's not the end of things, as apophenia said, none of those are supernatural events, so even if they happened, doesn't prove god.

I'll say this one more time: they're all equally ridiculous.

You think Christianity is equal to Scientology?

They're equally ridiculous yes.

What the fuck is naturalism?

The belief that the natural world, natural processes and the byproduct of natural processes is all there is to exist. This is essentially what you yourself believe, as an atheist.

Funny how you think you know what I believe in better than myself. God complex?

If someone can properly explain what supernatural is and show that it exists, it'd be natural.

It would be beyond the natural world as we understand it and therefore be a little more "super". Of course the resurrection of Christ would have to be a supernatural event as there would be no way to do this naturally. And if you think about it, God is a fairly supernatural kind of guy. If God was the natural universe he would just be the universe.

Oh you really had me convinced when you said "God is a fairly supernatural kind of guy". Makes so much sense!

Supernatural is just another word used to make people like you feel better, because otherwise you'd have to say, I believe in imaginary things.

Well it's good to feel better, better in a real moral compassionate sense in the loving God. As long as what you believe is actually true that's the trick right there. To do this you need to demonstrate how Christianity is the most substantive of the religions in the world and demonstrate the flaws with the naturalist worldview, which if you really look into it doesn't really hold water. There is still going to be a little bit of faith involved but faith is a good thing to have, providing it's not a blind faith you have no good reason to have.

I said you used the word to make yourself to feel less stupid, I was trying to get you to understand that the trick doesn't work with me. No need to go into preaching mode.

Atheism is the lack of belief. Get that through your head. Your bullshit isn't that hard to refute, it really is so ridiculous that's why we don't believe in it.

No I think once you get to the stage where you're properly hardcore and arguing against the existence of God/theism/supernatural/immortality/freewill/objective morality/purpose to the universe and all life then what you have is the full equivalent of a religious belief, we can call it scientific naturalism. I think like any religious belief there some things here you have to take with a little bit of faith. Assuming you don't God exists of course.

I don't take you seriously when you pretend to know what I believe in.

It's not random chance. Is that what joseph did? So where did he collect the sperm of the holy ghost?

If the universe wasn't purposefully created by God then it's a coincidence that it happened to be 100% perfectly ideally constructed and laid out for complex biological life to form. That would be us right here, we would be the byproduct not the intent. If God doe exist (and he does) and did create the universe (and he did) and he had something in mind (ourselves) then the situation is somewhat different in nature. I'd confidently claim that the evidence we have strongly supports the notion of a God or intelligence created natural order in a universe that was created for life.

[/quote]
That's a false dichotomy. You're talking in such broad terms that I'm not inclined to explain anything to you because that would steer this debate into what the scientific facts are. And I don't believe in debating scientific facts. So here, you're just plain wrong, you need to read a book to figure out why. There is no evidence. You don't know how to draw valid conclusions from evidence, you conclude something that the evidence doesn't clearly support, that's why Creationism isn't a science and will never be a science, cos it's stupid and dishonest.

[Esquilax]

It's technically possible but it's still going to be far less likely to be a fabrication than say the revelations of Mohammed, Joesph Smith and L Ron Hubbard due to the complexity of the situation and the number of people involved.

And there you go, still somehow making the assumption that it happened even in a conversation about the possibility that it's made up. Writers can write complex narratives, and I gotta tell ya, the stories about Jesus aren't that complex to begin with. I know you guys like to think that the bible is some kind of art, but it's really not. As for the number of people involved... come on, dude. The Doctor Who extended universe has far more writers involved than the bible, and as much as I'd like it to be otherwise, the Doctor still isn't real.

So if you had to pick one religion that was based on God and hiss revelation to humanity then you will probably have to agree that this is the one to go for. There are for other reasons for choosing this one specifically but at any rate this a is a good start.

Actually, until you provide evidence for the reality of your claims, nobody is obligated to choose any religion. Perhaps yours is the most likely fantasy story; that doesn't make it real. Prove that it is. Seriously, we like it when people provide evidence: give us your best argument for your religion, and see where it gets you.

Bald assertions will just get you on ignore lists.

Of course this isn't going to be compelling enough by itself to convince an atheist/naturalist or perhaps a deist of anything. The first thing you would have to do is take out all those specific supporting belief structures and assumptions of reality you have assembled/constructed before something like this can be driven in and conquer yo from within in the name of Christ. You know in Return of the Jedi when they had to take out the power generator on Endor before they could go in and attack the Death Stars power core? It will be like that. While your force field is fully operational nothing will get through.

So instead of just saying those supports exist, please present them. Show us what you think is good evidence for your position... the Star Wars references can stay, though.

That's because you're making all these naturalist assumptions about the nature of reality.

No, I actually don't. The natural world has the advantage of being demonstrable, and so I have no trouble believing that it exists. But I don't assume that's all there is; I just need more than being told that something else does, before I'll believe it. Hence the repeated requests for evidence or arguments, rather than just an outright denial.

You get to the resurrection once these assumptions have been cleared away. And they are just assumptions they don't necessarily just represent the "scientific worldview" or the "default setting "everyone is born with and you must maintain this primal rational purity or whatever. The existence of God is a fully rational and scientifically compatible concept and the association of miraculous events and a loving human relationship with this God is a fully rational and scientifically compatible concept as well. Nothing about the nature of reality would be violated if this is in fact the nature of reality. On this understanding you can accept the resurrection of Christ and the empty tomb and our eternal salvation through the grace and love of God, which is the central "Good News" of the gospels.

This stuff isn't going to tempt us; we've heard it all before. If this concept is so rational to you, then show us how. Don't just keep saying how rationally justified it is, over and over, without adding anything else. That's borderline preaching.

[Edwardo Piet]

You didn't get your morality, you didn't get your culture from science, I'm sorry about this.

You didn't get your morality from religion.

[pocaracas]

ah.... yesterday, I replied to this, but it seems the forum didn't store my reply...
I'll give it another go

Abraham didn't ask..and yet wad asked to kill his own son.

The point of the story as far I know was that God isn't like the other pagan gods who occasionally demanded human sacrifice. He didn't kill him after all. Prophets are individuals chosen by God to bring his message to his chosen people.

Nice wording there...
It's a story, just a story.
A story in which people claim that this one man had direct contact with a god. This god asked him directly to kill his own son.
Looks a lot like those other pagan gods demanding human sacrifice.
Oh, in the end the god of the story told the guy to stop, because it was enough for the man to show he would obey, no matter what.
Sort of like soldiers have to obey their commanding officers...

Now, this man was obeying an incorporeal being... That is so reassuring in what concerns his mental state.

Prophets... to me, they all sound like con artists, even though... some of them may be actually convinced of the BS they're spouting... these are the deluded ones, perhaps a delusion brought on by some psychological abnormality.... we are only far too aware of all the complexity of the human brain and how a small fault can yield strange results.
It is not inconceivable that Abraham was delusional, or a liar.... both options sound much more likely than accepting the claim that he actually talked with a god who asked him to kill his own son.
The same reasoning can be applied to any other prophet.

Oh, and this abrahamic god's first claimed interaction with the man was to assert itself as different from the other pagan gods... as if those exist, but need to be combated... strange... considering that, after Adam&Eve, this was the first god-human interaction... why would humans have developed these other gods? How long was there between these two events?

Moses didn't ask, and yet got a few stone tablets with writing on them.

Again he was a prophet. He may have had to carve the tablets himself, they would have been given to him in vision or something.

That's not how the story goes.
And visions fit right into the good old hallucination category... it seems prophets were ripe with mental problems...
And the few who had the ability to convince others... aka, con artists... got to spread their delusional crap.

No, I have no evidence for this view... it's just a hypothesis... one that carries much more weight than accepting that such incorporeal beings exist and talk only to a few very specific people, asking them to kill someone, then telling them how to behave, then telling them that their interpretation of the behavioral rules was wrong and needs a bit of a change... oh... so much idiocy from a being of such high regard.

If we accept god does such things, then why settle for crapy confirmation bias and self delusions?

He won't have done it in quite the dramatic way the Bible describes. But the Torah/Bible is a revelation to humanity from God overall, it's "God breathed" and all that business.

OH, so people were using confirmation bias back then? and writing some BS for others to follow?

If the evidence is there, then god is doing a bang up job hiding it from us.
Did it lose its ability to write on stone tablets?

When it says God used his finger to carve the tablets it was (according to my annotated Bible here) referring to the Holy Spirit of God. I'm sure there were some tablets those were kept in the Ark of the Covenant they carried around with them.

Your "annotated bible"??
Annotated by whom? god? or some human with his own confirmation bias? And his own yearning for a way to explain away these inconsistencies?

Yes people have direct contact with God through the Holy Spirit. I'd argue that atheists have the exact same contact, certainly as they seem to place great importance on morality and they share the same awe at the universe.

There he goes with the morality thing again...
People had morals before JC came into the picture.

There's your evidence for God/the Holy Spirit then. What more do you want?

I want you to understand that that is not evidence for god/holy spirit.
It is evidence for a common evolution of human societies.

Christianity is the one that adopted pre-existing morals.

Are you sure it didn't just reveal the Moral Law that had always been present? Seems like you're recognizing something as beyond human culture and opinion to me.

Am I?
Are you trying to project your own ignorance onto me?

Humans evolved within the context of a social group. Individuals who were not beneficial for the group were eliminated. Those individuals who managed not to be detrimental to the group survived and passed on those genes.
What you call morality is simply what has worked better for the continuation of the group. Much trial and error was required... Many errors still sprout every now and then, but, for the most part, we are the product of this natural selection... Much like an experiment being carried out in Siberia, with foxes, where the researchers are trying to domesticate foxes, by selecting for breeding only those who are more friendly around humans, and then repeating it for the offspring and for the offspring of the offspring, and so on and so forth... This experiment is very close to an actual domesticated fox (as domesticated as a cat, I guess) and is a good example of foxes acquiring some sort of morality, at least, towards humans.

Awe at the universe... research: China, 6th century BC.

I didn't say it was exclusive to Christianity/the West it's a universal trait for all humanity in all eras of history. It all comes from God of course.

Of course?! Dammit, I remember having written something nice in here, about this... But can't remember what...
If ti was "of course" there would be no atheists.
IF it was "of course" there would be no religions.
If it was "of course" every single human being would be fully aware of that fact.

No, this is far from "of course"!

That's the thing...you don't grow indoctrinated into atheism. You grow immersed in the culture of the country where you live... in the western world, this culture had been greatly influenced by Christianity and, more recently, by science, technology and economics.
So, the most common path is one where you learn about the god of the bible or the Qur'an, the adults tell you it's true and tout live happy with that information... Until you grow, think a bit, and go either the atheist way, or become like you.

Yes but the religion of the culture you live in can still be the best one and the religion of your own culture can still be the one that contains the most truth. So you're lucky to have had a head start in it. Bear in mind of course that atheism is only something that is popular as a philosophy/worldview in the Western nations, it's not popular in Africa or South America. So your atheism can just as easily be an accident of where you were born. But you think it's true anyway and you think you have good reasons for believing it. So it's very much the same thing really.

Atheism is "popular" in the western world, because that's where most of the educated people are.
As soon as you know a few things about the world, you realize how much BS religions spout... unless you deliberately ignore the knowledge that has been amassed by fellow humans attempting to demonstrate to everyone else how the world really works... and you insist on following whatever religions have been saying for hundreds of years with no shred of evidence to back them up.

Typically(from what I have observed in this forum - not a good source for stats, I know), the people who become atheist have a more analytical mind, while the ones who become theists tend to be more emotional.

You can use both parts of your mind equally. you can deduce the existence of God on a purely rational/scientific basis, it's called deism. To believe in say the Bible or Christ you need to add some faith but it can be a "Reasonable Faith".



Rather than a blind faith. So what you have here is the best of both worlds.

Really?
William Lane Craig?
The crap apologist who masks his ignorance behind fancy words?
If you truly accept what this guy says, then you really are deluded... (notice how I used the words "truly" and "really")
Here, check this link and any that come up after it:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=william+lane+craig+refuted

You're from a western culture hence you find Christianity as the "truth". Had you been born in the middle east, you'd probably claim Islam to be the truth...same for India, Indonesia, south America, and anywhere on this planet...you tend to embrace the local mythology.

You're from a Western secularized culture so you think atheism/naturalism is true. What works for me works for you. We both have same the secular background anyway it seems I'm the one being more independent of my upbringing.

What does "atheism is true" mean?

I am an atheist because I do not believe that any god exists.
If any god does exist, then it has provided me, and many like me, with no reason to accept that existence. If it doesn't want me to acknowledge its existence, then... why should I?
If it does want me to acknowledge its existence, then by all means, I'm waiting for it... not you, nor any deluded person would be able to make me acknowledge it.... only itself would do the trick. Can't wait! But I'm not holding my breath for it, either...

Christianity has no evidence.

Not scientific evidence no. God is a good foundation for what we understand through science we have a rationally understandable, intricate and perfectly balanced universe right here. There is kind of a God involved in Christianity if you think about it. It's the kind of thing you may see occasionally mentioned.

Are you trying a foray into the god of the gaps argument?

Here's a bit of it: in the years or decades after this alleged resurrection, Jerusalem remained a Jew city.most of the people there remained Jews, or Romans. It was only elsewhere that people came to believe such tales about JC, as three resurrection, turning water to wine, walking on water, etc.

The Jews didn't really accept Jesus as their Messiah but that does actually fulfill the Biblical prophecy where the Messiah would be rejected by his own people and bring God to the Gentiles. Interesting.

The jews, who were there and got first hand accounts of the event, didn't believe... and yet, you suppose I should?
Isn't it much simpler to think that this new religion appeared at some point after the supposed timestamp of the events, carrying some elements that would allow it to "fulfill" a bit of prophecy and, because no evidence for this JC boy existed, the jews refused to accept it?

Then Muslims walked into the city and turned it into a Muslim center.
Christianity has always been a minority in the place where the man actually came back to life!! How's that possible, unless there's no evidence for such occurrence and, even at the time when it supposedly happened, there was no evidence for it?

What matters is the first followers of Christ can be traced to the historical time and place and the resurrection account wasn't a later addition to the story but was there from the very start. But like yourself the Jews who hadn't experienced these events would have been skeptical as it didn't fit with the traditional Jewish faith, it was much too strange. Also the first Christians believed in what had happened so strongly they were prepared to suffer persecution and die for it. Saint Paul was originally a bounty hunter of Christians called Saul but certainly something happened to him to make him very radically change his mind.

Yes, something happened to Saul... something so nasty, it turned him into Paul.
Let's assume it was the same person: epileptic seizure could explain it... something we can observe nowadays happening in people, unlike your explanation...
Let's assume it wasn't the same person: Prosecutor gets kidnapped and killed and replaced by someone similar which decides to preach something related to the growing belief in the JC figure as a god/prophet thing, but in a novel way... It was this guy that introduced the notion of the holy ghost, if I'm not mistaken. This guy, who had zero contact with JC himself.
And people have been buying into this seemingly made up crap for 2 millenia, not counting what jews had been buying into before that, and what other civilizations had bought even before.

Yes, the first christians were prosecuted so much that, allegedly, Peter managed to arrive at Rome, unscathed and spread the word.

Oh, but you'd probably like to learn a bit more about those first christians...
Here's what a historical biblical scholar has to say on the matter:

[Angrboda]

The point of the story as far I know was that God isn't like the other pagan gods who occasionally demanded human sacrifice. He didn't kill him after all. Prophets are individuals chosen by God to bring his message to his chosen people.

Nice wording there...
It's a story, just a story.
A story in which people claim that this one man had direct contact with a god. This god asked him directly to kill his own son.
Looks a lot like those other pagan gods demanding human sacrifice.
Oh, in the end the god of the story told the guy to stop, because it was enough for the man to show he would obey, no matter what.
Sort of like soldiers have to obey their commanding officers...

Now, this man was obeying an incorporeal being... That is so reassuring in what concerns his mental state.

Prophets... to me, they all sound like con artists, even though... some of them may be actually convinced of the BS they're spouting... these are the deluded ones, perhaps a delusion brought on by some psychological abnormality.... we are only far too aware of all the complexity of the human brain and how a small fault can yield strange results.

It is not inconceivable that Abraham was delusional, or a liar.... both options sound much more likely than accepting the claim that he actually talked with a god who asked him to kill his own son.
The same reasoning can be applied to any other prophet.

"I can't come to work today. The voices told me to stay home and clean the guns."


Another typical cherry picking Christian.

"Those parts of the bible that agree with me, those you should take literally. Those parts that disagree with me? Those are just metaphors for something else."

[Mister Agenda]

You can't reject the resurrection quite as easily as say you would reject Mohammed claim that he flew up to heaven on a winged horse or Joesph Smiths translation of golden tablets only he could read through magical stones inside a hat.

Why not? All those things are hearsay, and if we reject two of them because they sound impossible, why not the other?

As an atheist/non-believer you have to work a bit harder at explaining what this event was based on and what it was people apparently experienced. You can still do it of course but you need to put some more effort into this one.

Why? It's hearsay. Without corroborating evidence, it's fifity-fifty at best, add in that it describes an event normally held to be impossible, it goes on the 'Mohammed flew to heaven' pile.

If you think God is a ridiculous concept with no real chance of existing then you will just have to explain away the resurrection and the empty tomb as some kind of hysteria.

If you think God is a perfectly reasonable concept with every chance of existing, you still don't have to explain away something that hasn't been shown to have happened in the first place.

It's a little different if you're convinced that God must exist to begin with, evidence from human experience, philosophy, science and so on.

It's not different, unless there's something about believing in God that necessarily prevents you from not believing the resurrection story. There are about 1.5 billion Muslims who believe in God but think the resurrection story went quite differently.

---

I suppose you think they're all 100% purely made up and fictional without a shred of truth anywhere within and you and 2% of the human race have access to the full pure and exclusive truth, that you alone somehow know. I think my view is a little more moderate/liberal than yours, less dogmatic.

The way you somehow know that Mohammed didn't fly up to the moon? That's how we somehow know Jesus wasn't resurrected. The supernatural claims of the world's religions can't all be true because so many of them contradict each other: but they CAN all be false.

[Jackalope]

There are about 1.5 billion Muslims who believe in God but think the resurrection story went quite differently.

Not to mention that there are approximately 5 billion non-Christians, many of whom believe in some form of god, but likely think the resurrection story is bunk.

Not that there's anything conclusive about it, but there it is.

[ManMachine]

Get ready for a lot of butt-hurt. Someone seems to be upset at the articles saying atheists are smarter.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanth...tally-ill/

Obviously, it’s the believers who are smarter. Anyone who thinks otherwise is mentally ill.

And I mean that literally: the evidence today implies that atheism is a form of mental illness. And this is because science is showing that the human mind is hard-wired for faith: we have, as a species, evolved to believe, which is one crucial reason why believers are happier – religious people have all their faculties intact, they are fully functioning humans.

Therefore, being an atheist – lacking the vital faculty of faith – should be seen as an affliction, and a tragic deficiency: something akin to blindness. Which makes Richard Dawkins the intellectual equivalent of an amputee, furiously waving his stumps in the air, boasting that he has no hands.

Apparently, not believing in the magic man watching over your shoulder is crazy.

Perhaps we have just evolved past the need for delusional crutches?

It could equally mean the notion of god and the capacity for systems of belief (not 'faith' as he incorrectly states) evolved, proving Darwin right and put god in it's place as an artefact of developmental retardation.

Mr Thomas has clearly not read - and IMO seems to stand no chance of understanding - the research but appears to be relying on other people's comments on it. Piss poor journalism.

He does seem to be very angry about something... which is not an excuse to write histrionic crap.


MM