None! I have never met a Christian who became a Christian because of some argument. The only Christians I have met have been indoctrinated or became “Born Again” due to highly charged emotional experience that bypassed the reason center of their brain.

The honest truth is that Christians don’t reason their way into religion. Religion is not reasonable. They may make up arguments which they think are reasonable, but those arguments didn’t convince them or anyone else.

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Why is it that no one believes in Zeus any more? I’m not advocating such a belief, but I do wonder about it. Perhaps the newer mythologies of the Abrahamic religion resonate more with people than the Hellenistic religions of the past. Perhaps even newer religions like Scientology will take over. Or just maybe, we can acknowledge the fact that all these religions are make believe.

This doesn’t mean that we must erase these religions from history. The fact is that the Hellenistic religions are just as popular today as they were back in the day. The difference is that they aren’t worshiped as religions any more but rather as mythology.

Recently, Clash of the Titans was remade earning a fortune at the box office. A number of years ago Disney made the film Hercules. Even though no one believes these stories are real any more, that doesn’t seem to matter. People can still enjoy them as stories.

Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are stories. We can stop believing that they are real and still believe that they make entertaining stories worth reading, watching, and thinking about. But just as no one bothers to argue over the Historic Hercules, we should no longer waste our time arguing over the Historic Jesus. It’s fiction!

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As it turns out, faith knowledge amounts to naked assertion. If someone claims to know something on faith, there is no way to contest such knowledge. It can’t be argued rationally and it can’t be disproved empirically.

Faith knowledge is the ultimate conversation stopper. Anyone can claim to know anything on faith knowledge and there is no disputing it. It is the ultimate proof that God exists. One knows it on faith. Of course, we can also know that unicorns exist on faith knowledge too.

This ridiculous idea of faith knowledge is the last refuge for the intellectually bankrupt. The fact is that any knowledge must be independently verified and testable. As much as I like the idea of rational knowledge, it doesn’t really exist either. There is only one kind of knowledge and that is knowledge which can be tested and independently verified.

The ancient Greeks defined knowledge as Justified True Belief. We must be justified in thinking something is true, it must be true objectively through independent verification, and we must believe it to be true. Believing something to be true alone does not make it true nor does it make it knowledge.

The media has a really short attention span, because it was just three months ago that they had the same breaking news when Hawking gave an interview in which he stated, “There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.”

Still, for some strange reason, the media is convinced that Doctor Hawking was a fundamentalist Christian because he stated in his book, “If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we should know the mind of God.” To a scientist, such a statement is equivalent to saying “God bless you,” when someone sneezes.

As for the real breaking news, Hawking stated that the gap in our knowledge which was filled with God pertaining to the creation of the universe has been closed. According to Hawking, based on the evidence there is no reason why a deity would be needed to create the universe. He has actually suggested something similar before, but now he has the evidence to back it up.

This means that a god is not needed to fill the role of a creator and toward the end of the year Sam Harris will show the evidence which will close the god gap in morality. As we keep closing these gaps, God is finding a hard time finding things to have done. In other words, Christians are running out of things to give God credit for. Soon, the only thing left for God to claim credit for will be some touchdown or rap award.

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First, this is illegal and anyone who experiences anything similar to this should contact their local ACLU right away. These types of religious people have no problem forcing their beliefs on everyone else and they are not afraid to break the law to do it. In their view, they are obeying God’s Law.

In addition to the ACLU, there is someone else that should be contacted. I am a member and former board member of the Freethought Society. At the time that I was a board member, we were mainly just a Philadelphia organization, but now the organization is becoming more of a national group. This organization has been trying to document discrimination against atheists. This information might be used in larger national cases down the road, but for now it is just important to document them and make sure they are on the record. Find out more about the Freethought Society’s Anti-Discrimination Network HERE and if you are a victim of discrimination due to your lack of belief, please download this PDF form and send it to Margaret Downey of the Freethought Society.

It seems that the fundamentalist Christian view is that without Jesus, people are bitter and angry by default. Perhaps they believe that only atheists are angry and bitter. It seems to be a stereotype that Christians have about atheists that has no real basis at all. Being in the greater atheist community, I rarely if ever meet atheists who are angry and bitter people. They do exist, but no more than in the general population.

On the other hand, there is a stereotype that many fundamentalist Christians seem to exhibit. It seems that fundamentalist Christians often are as George Carlin put it, “more then happy.” They seem to hide their true emotions and put on a Ned Flanders type front. Underneath the super jolly front, they hid a lot of anger and bitterness.

Maybe these fundamentalist Christians are just projecting their own anger and bitterness on atheists. Or perhaps they see atheist actually express their feelings openly rather then hid them as they do.

The fact is that most atheists don’t donate in the name of atheism. We just donate to organizations on our own as individuals. But how much are we donating to atheist infrastructure?

Almost every atheist organization I know is always in need of funds. Whether it is a local atheist group or larger groups like American Atheists, American Humanist Association, Center For Inquiry, or others are all in desperate need of donations. While it would be great if Brad Pitt and Bill Maher would donate a ton of money to these groups, the fact is that atheists with slightly less money need to donate too; even if that is just a $35 donation every now and then. Consider these donations to be investments in reason.

Speaking of donating to atheist causes, let me remind you that there is a contribution button on the sidebar… hint, hint.

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A number of years ago, I met a young Christian who was telling me his story about how he used to be addicted to drugs, alcohol, and sex. He told me that his life was spiraling out of control and no one he could do could save him. Then along came Jesus to the rescue. Now that he was “Born Again” his life had gotten so much better and he couldn’t have done it without Jesus. So I had to tell him about the one true God, Jean-Luc Picard.

The story that this Christian told me is a very popular narrative and I have heard it or some variation of it many times. Of course Jesus had nothing to do with the Christian’s recovery and Captain Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation made the best argument against Jesus saving these people’s lives.

There was an episode called Devil’s Due in which the Enterprise received a distress single from a planet that was suffering from mass hysteria. The people on the planet have lived in peace and relative harmony for a thousand years and now all of a sudden everyone was in a panic and violence was breaking out. According to the Bible… I mean “ancient scrolls,” a thousand years ago there planet was at war fighting over resources, there was lots of pollution in the air and water, and the planet was in general bad shape. Then the Devil came and offered them a thousand years of peace in return for their immortal souls at the end of the thousand years. Well, not the end of days has arrived and the people of this planet feared the Devil’s return to collect.

Captain Picard of course tried to reason with them and to assure them that there is no Devil, but the people on the planet insisted that they could not have saved themselves and that the story about the Devil was real. To Captain Picard’s surprise, the Devil actually showed up.

Picard of course had to challenge the Devil in a sort of trial and at one point he had the planet’s president on the stand for questioning. He asked him about the state of the planet prior to the deal with the Devil. Again, the president was convinced that the Devil saved the planet and that they couldn’t have done it without the Devil’s help. When Picard asked the President about the actual nuts and bolts of the changes that occurred, the truth was revealed.

Did the Devil wave her magic hand and stop all wars? No, the leaders of the various nations got together and realized that they could not keep fighting over resources so they made a series of treaties. Did the Devil wave her hand and magically clean up the air and water pollution? No, the people switched from an industrial based society to an agrarian based life. Did the Devil hand out food to the hungry? No, with the new agrarian lifestyle they had plenty of food to feed the hungry. Did the Devil “even so-much as pick up a single piece of trash?” The answer to all of the questions was obvious. The Devil didn’t do damn thing, it was the people of the planet that did all the work “all by themselves.”

Now, swap out the Devil for Jesus and the planet’s problems for the problems of drug addicts, alcoholics, etc. Did Jesus magically suck the poisons out? Did Jesus flush away the hidden stash? Did Jesus even pure a single glass of alcohol down the drain? No, the addict did it all, all by his or her self.

All Jesus actually did was to provide an excuse for the addict to decide for themselves that it was time to clean up their act. Jesus at best is a placebo and at worst, Jesus acts as a replacement addiction. Christian simply trade one addiction for another.

Yesterday, I blogged about how the Catholic Religion is nearing the tipping point that might send it into the pit of dead religions. Well, after tweeting the link to the blog, some Christian sent me a link to his page where he talked about how in Britain, Muslims don’t have to wear a motorcycle helmet and no one objects to Muslim women wearing their head scarves at work yet one airline apparently prohibits the wearing of crucifixes.

Let’s analyze this a little bit. First, while I think he makes a valid point about the motorcycle helmets, I don’t typically think of Muslims rolling in on Harleys. It is a bit weak. As far as no one objecting to the head scarf, that has to do with people’s attitudes and belief in tolerance. Interestingly enough, there is currently a case in which a woman was fired from her job for wearing her head scarf in America. The issue was to do with work place dress codes. This ought to apply to crucifixes too as it appears it does with that one airline in Britain. It isn’t about religion at all.

This Christian then complained about how Christians can’t run adoption agencies on “Christian principles” because they want to discriminate against gays. Cry me a river. Oh know the western nations are actually treating Christians equally instead of giving their ridiculous cult special exemptions from the law; except of course the whole exemption from taxes, the free advertising on currency, in our national motto, in our pledge, and from just about every politician in the nation. And that is just the beginning of Christian woes in western nations, lol.

What a bunch of whinny bitches, no wonder Christians are always so nostalgic for the past when they could discriminate, torture, and burn people to death just for a hint that such people might not agree on the official Church doctrine. Ah yes, George Carlin put it best when he said, “Do you believe in God?” “No.” Boom! Dead. “Do you believe in God?” “Yes…” “Do you believe in my God?” “No.” Boom! Dead. “My god has a bigger dick than your god!” What he should have added was, “Do you believe in my God?” “Yes.” “Do you believe in my God in my way?” “No.” Boom! Dead.