Obligatory CYA addendum:

On the other hand, if Bach or other artists used religious structures, and even religious practices such as prayer or meditation, in advancing their art, these religious practices are surely to be emulated. The false and unnecessary are to be discarded, and the efficacious retained. Inspiration can come in many ways, sometimes through dreams, but I don't know any artist worth the name who simply barfs forth their art without undergoing some introspective moment, whether they call it "meditation," or "prayer," or just "thinking."

When I say this, I don't mean in any way that it is imperative to practice in just the way that a religious person practices. Many atheists or agnostics treat people kindly without a religious dogma. Similarly, many agnostic or atheistic artists do their work without praying to an external source, and still receive inspiration. They would say it's from within themselves; the religious might say it's from God or a god. If the work gets done well, who cares? But just be aware, as you reject the tenets of religion, of exactly what you reject. "Screw the Leviticus laws." I'm with you so far. "Screw prayer?" Up to you. But if you're an artist: "screw introspection?" I hope not. And if you're a human being: "Screw kindness?" No.

It's time this silly canard be retired. Refusing to believe in 'god' (which one?) is not 'hating' religion, any more than refusing to 'believe' in Peter Pan is hating movies. It's the very real, concrete and scary actions of believers that cause all the trouble everyone (including Richard Dawkins) is upset about.

Fence-sitters and intellectuals alike: Why are you so credulous? Why coddle such an outdated institution as belief? Belief is the real pathology. Why not demand evidence and reject all else? Create your own meaning in your life if you need it. Or just spend your days figuring out how to get along better in this world.

What's so special about mysteries anyway, except the pleasure of trying to solve them? Armstrong's pseudo-sophistication about her concept of 'god' is a shallow mask for her worthless fear and sentimentality. In the end, it's all just a defense mechanism.

Religion already has enough apologists. Will the human race please grow up already?

>Why coddle such an outdated institution as belief? Belief is the real pathology.

I don't believe you.

Ben: "...many [people] seem largely ignorant of the sort of logical skepticism which causes faith to fall by the wayside."

And guess who has a vested interest in keeping them that way?

I truly wish we lived in a civilization that didn't cling to regressive ideology. Every time I read about medical advances getting held back by fundamentalists, or birth control being withheld, or school boards getting hijacked, I feel a deep pain for future generations who will essentially live through a modern version of the Dark Ages. It's happened in the past, and to a certain extent it's happening now.

I guess it's a fitting outcome when God's first command to Adam was to not eat from the Tree Of Knowledge. But then how did He manage to let 'curiosity' slip into the list of human traits?

This conversation has gotten quite lively and inspirational. Ben and Anonymous 2 deserve credit for pushing it. And Zeke no apology necessary; you certainly are entitled to your beliefs. I wasn't trying to disabuse you of them; emphasizing that atheism is a belief system doesn't discredit it, but only assigns it greater responsibility to be fair and accurate.

These are complex issues and carte blanche dismissals or ad hominem attacks aren't going to open minds, but lead to further polarization. The point about Armstrong having experienced religion from the inside out is that she's more experienced in having understood the range and depth of its excesses, not that she's holier than thou. "A History of God," is an extraordinary masterpiece that objectively provides believers as well as atheists with rich substantiation for the purposes of conducting profound discourse.

She also accounts for a universal, historic yearning for spirituality, I'll generically call, a higher purpose. My letters are not necessarily in defense of religion per se, but in defense of the human endeavor to search for a higher purpose, which has included spiritual and religious efforts.

That endeavor has also enlisted many brilliant secularists, including Rousseau, Hume, Kant, Jefferson, Paine, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Jung, William James, and Bertrand Russell to name a few. Without their contributions the world would be more impoverished. Some of their ideas, however, led to considerable damage and an ideological rage that set the world on fire for almost an entire century. Just as religion has been a mixed bag, so has secularism and atheism. Regardless of which side of the fence you're sitting on, we're still an immature, and consequently, a stupid species.

Zeke asks an interesting question: What if atheism is genetic? And deluxe, in an inspired entry, asks us to consider the glory of Greece. "The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind," by Julian Jaynes, presents a theory about both. Jaynes claimed that the voices of the gods reported by Homer, which animated his characters, were, in effect, articulated instincts as the mind was shifting from a semiconscious state to a more rational understanding of the world. In a more primitive way, when Fido chases a ball or begs for a bone, he is being directed by an unspoken instinct. Once humans began relying more on their logical hemisphere, the instincts were associated with gods, or, in other words, authorities outside of the body dictating directions.

Subsequently, brain scientists have been looking for, and allegedly finding, a part of the brain dedicated to connecting to the divine. Their research signifies that, at least, spiritual expression, if not religion itself, is probably genetic. That's not to say this is proof of God or the validity of religion. It does, however, provide grounds that are, at this point, nearly empirical that mind is programmed to search for a higher purpose. Maybe that higher purpose is enlightened atheism, but to get to that point the anthropological record of universal spiritual expression is clear (name one society that didn't exhibit it - even Neanderthals buried their dead with sacramental rituals). Spirituality and religion were going to be the common pursuits for attaining meaning, ethics and a higher purpose.

As Greeks evolved from around 3000 BC to 1000 BC, and constructed myths that anthropomorphized their gods - weakening them in the process - the ancient attachment to divinities gradually weakened. During this stage, the oracles of Delphi - a brilliant, primarily matriarchal group - served as the leading sages of their time. Alexander the Great, for instance, sought their advise before conducting war. Their ruling value was an admixture of Know Thyself and Nothing in Excess, inspiring Socrates to insist, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Unfortunately, this sublime wisdom was not able to hold that wondrous society together, in part because of Spartan brutes not interested in knowing themselves beyond their weapons, and Persians who wanted a piece of the good life, who, apparently, couldn't live without excess. Indeed, the Spartans and the Persians were the archetypal pagans, for all intents and purposes, ancient atheists, paying lip service to the gods, who brought an end to the glory that was Greece.

In response to this discord, Plato wrote "The Republic," a proto totalitarian scheme that included the invention of hell as a coercive penalty to hold the community together so Athenians could stave off the enemies. Of course, it was already too late for that. Arguably, there is more Catholicism is this one book than in all the New Testament, and, oddly, it was written by a secularized philosopher fearful of the pagans. Likewise, it had been Moses, and then Muhammad who were responding to pagan, i.e., atheistic, threats in formulating their religious views. And in this regard, the three major religions, as well as many others, have been reactively constructed in response to pagans not willing to self-regulate themselves and live according to the wisdom of the oracles of Delphi.

If only humankind could follow that Delphic prescription (Know Thyself was intended as a lifelong search since no one completely knows one's self) then religions, or at least the religions we now know, may never have been invented, and a search for a higher purpose kept a private affair. Do you atheists have a plan for making that possible? If not most people most of the time are going to rely on religion and God as the viable alternatives.