Letters to the Editor
droogoy
Published Letters: 590 Editor's Choice: 9
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firefly burns out again
[Read the article: Romney: "Freedom requires religion" ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]firefly82 wrote:
Hitchens and Dawkins and others have every right to their smug, smarmy, shallow contempt for religion, and to broadcast it as they see fit
Have you read either of their books? Both? I doubt it. Both are supremely well composed, argued, and not "shallow" at all. Though I suspect a shallow mind would not be able to tackle them.
Read them, then make your snide comments.
Religion was deemed a "mind virus" and "disease" long before Dawkins or Hitchens came around. I invite you to read, for example, Jacques Monod's fascinating demolition of it in his Chance and Necessity. Showing how biochemistry is at the root of all life. And how religion evolved from a memetic basis.
If that doesn't grab you, then read Michael Persinger's The Neuropsychological Basis of God Beliefs.
Showing via experimental data how religion is grounded in micro-seizures in the brain's temporal lobes.
Look to your brain, Horatio, as the agent for the deformity of religion. There ain't no god behind it, just deformed minds.
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Anon's delusions
[Read the article: Romney: "Freedom requires religion" ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Anonymous wrote:
What you need to deal with, at least when it comes to Judaism and Christianity, is the vast historical, documentary and archeological evidence that what is reported in the Old Testament and New Testament actually happened. It's not based on "feelings" or "experiences" at all.
You're totally deluded, pard. Even Rev. Thomas Bokenkotter, a foremost historian of the RC Church has noted (A Concise History of the Catholic Church, p. 17):
"The Gospels were never intended to be taken literally as historical or biographical documents, they were meant to convert unbelievers to faith in Jesus".
That's not from an atheist, but a Roman Catholic scholar.
Now, let's go on to consider the fictitious town of “Nazareth”.
Forget for the moment that the name borne by the earliest followers of Yeshua was “Nazoreans’ - NOT “Christians” – And Yeshua was known as “the Nazorean”. This is a sectarian term of which the Hebrew is ‘Notsrim’ and is NOT connected directly with a place called “Nazareth” or with the messianic “Nezer” branch from the roots of Jesse.
Nazoreans’ members proclaimed themselves the “preservers of the true faith of Israel”- but this claim was also made by the Samaritans, inhabiting Samaria (Shomron) who represented themselves as the ‘Shamerine’ – the custodians or keepers of the original ISRAELITE religion, as opposed to the Judeans (Jews)
In his article ‘Where Jesus Never Walked’. (American Atheist, Winter 1996-97, p. 34) Frank Zindler notes “Nazareth” is not mentioned once in the entire Old Testament, nor do any ancient historians or geographers mention it before the beginning of the 4th century. As Zindler points out:
“The Talmud, though it names 63 Galilean towns, knows nothing of Nazareth. Joesphus, who wrote extensively about Galilee (a region roughly the size of Rhode Island) ….mentions Nazareth not even once – although he does mention by name 45 other cities and villages of Galilee. This is even more telling when one discovers that Josephus does mention Japha, a village which is just over a mile from present-day Nazareth!”
(snip)
“Although the New Testament tells us very little about our mythical municipality, it does tell us enough to allow us to conclude that present day Nazareth couldn’t be the biblical city referred to say, in the fourth chapter of Luke.
“Like the White Queen whom Alice met in ‘Through the Looking Glass’, Christian pilgrims have always been able to believe six or more mutually contradictory, impossible propositions every morning before breakfast. Unlike the White Queen, however, the Christians have been able to maintain such belief after breakfast as well.”
Lastly, I never ever said or implied religion is "based on feelings". It is based on flawed ideation arising from internal brain deformities (from a tri-partite brain architecture) and pathologies arising therefrom. For example, when specific regions near and around the temporal lobes are excised they stop. A better method is to implant quantum dot electrodes to control the micro-seizures that give rise to these delusions.
Religion is thus the embodiment of slavery, not freedom.
This is how it is possible for vast numbers of people to confect mumbo-jumbo and delusions no different from a twelve dimensional flying spaghetti monster.
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If you're really rational - faith is superfluous
[Read the article: Romney: "Freedom requires religion" ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]firefly82 wrote:
Again with the assumptions about what my faith AND my rational understanding will and won't embrace.
A quite valid assumption, if I do say so. First, if you did read Monod's work, and accepted his advanced biochemistry arguments, you'd have no need to "believe" in anything, like a great grand pappy in the sky (or spirit, or whatnot)
In the same way, if you read Persinger's work, you would see that "belief in God" becomes superfluous.
It is somewhat like the Xtians that can't handle their evolution straight up, they insist on invoking a god that "used evolution for its purpose of creation" - not realizing evolution via natural selection renders any extraneous creative agents redundant.
If you insist you have faith, you can't be truly rational. Becuause then - to believe the supernatural nonsense at the root of faith - you would have to commit the logical fallacy of ignotum per ignotius or using the even less well understood (spirit, soul, God etc.) to explain the not well understood.
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I nominate.....
[Read the article: Romney and Huckabee's religious intolerance ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]zackandzanesmom to be one of the first to get a quantum dot implant in her temporal lobes, to quell the over-the-top religio-delusionary tendencies.
As we know, religion is a mind virus. It appears to emerge from within circuits firing in the temporal lobes, according to experiments by Michael Persinger (see his fabulous The Neuropsychological Bases of God Belief). This being the case, solution to temper the micr-seizures or "TLTs" (temporal lobe transients) in the brain are in the spotlight.
How about it, Z-mom?? The operation will probably only take a few minutes, and I am sure the implant will last the rest of your life.
You will then be able to make an intelligent comment for once.