There is healthy normal skepticism and then there is closedmindedness.

However I believe that cosmoslogists and other scientists while making all kinds of wonderful discoveries about the universe and of our world... as well as all the technological and medical advances...all these discoveries made by men and women whether they are aware of it or not have been inspired by God.

Nice! Actually, I have known a lot of attractive Mormon girls.



I forgot about that underwear. Kinky.

Thanks. Well, people seem to think that I fundamentally hate religion and all who believe in gods, but I do not. I do not hate religion when it isn't used to cause suffering (like fundamentalist Christianity) or hatred.

I also hate the evils of religions more than I hate things that I consider foolish. For instance, I think that a talking snake is ridiculous but I do not hate it as much as the idea of eternal damnation, holy genocide or holy tyranny.

The fantastic Dave Allen on Christianity:

Inspired by who? Evolution has given us a soaring intelligence, creativity, an stunning ability to figure out solutions, yo ucan call that god if you wish but you are missing the point: where is your evidence that they have been inspired a god? If you really care about the truth, the scientific method is by far the best tool we have in uncovering the mysteries about the cosmos. Where is the evidence for a god?

I also give you a thumbs up for your response to the lds doctrine Angy.It is thier core beliefs that is why I become a member since 1996.I looked at it logicaly and studied it and came to the conclusion that the lds interpretation of God and the concept of heaven and hell and the afterlife, who we are and where we are going made a whole lot of sense to me.

And it is true that our church probably recieves more critism from other christian denominations (as you once pointed it out) than we do from non-theist groups.However I do believe that we ought not to badmouth other christian organizations, because the vast majority of them all do wonderful alms/good deeds for thier comunnities and such. We must not overlook the greater good that most religious organizations actually do, including the catholic church.



I don't think that it is the faith by itself that is inherently evil, it is what comes from the hearts of people who allowed thier fanaticism to commit acts that are abominations in the sight of God.

It's a very silly, unhelpful claim made by certain religious people when they have nothing useful to contribute, and frankly it barely deserves a response. Although it is ironic that the same works that have allegedly been 'inspired' by God have also led to the undermining of virtually every divine claim and religious dogma, beyond blind speculation upon the origin of the universe.

I would disagree, because most Christian ''charities'' concern themselves more with conversion than actually good deed. For most people, food, water, housing and safety are more important than Bibles, Jesus and church. It is no good teaching the poor and destitute the ''love'' of Jesus while they starve. Missions are not as important as houses.

I, personally, believe that charity should be approached in a secular and a-political way. I would never use good deeds to fish for converts. You wouldn't see me handing Bertrand Russell, the 'Dhammapada' or the works of Jung or Marx to poverty stricken people in Africa.



I would have to disagree with you there. Fundamentalist Christianity is its own faith, or sub-religion, and it is quite clearly evil. Infact, it ruined my exe's life because the faith contained more evil than her heart; she didn't leave the faith but she has to worry about all her non-Christian friends burning in hell together, hate any other religions and many minority groups. Her whole life has been tainted but that religion. She hasn't got a large selection of friends to choose from, she is always worried that the music she likes will get her in trouble with her ''god'', she always has to cheer at the inane things her Pastor says, she always has to pay her church so they can expand their buildings and buy new eletronics! etc. She is a liberal and kind soul trapped into a religion that doesn't suit her.

Daily blasphemy for 10/1/10

While Issac Asimov was a brilliant scientist/novelist. How does he explain our conscieneness and how our sense of self come from then?How did self awareness "evolve"?

He is also wrong about putting faith in man's sense of justice.I 've all too often seen the flaws in our court systems and how the wicked go unpunished according to thier deeds.

Also, if Assimov believed that oblivion awaits all of us when die, then how does he explain our purpose in life and why we ought to try to make this world a better place.Why did he bother to do anything if he knew nothingness awaited him when he dies?

No one has proven that oblivion/nothingness awaits us when we die because no one has come back to tell us about it....which obviously will tell us that it would obviously be not the case.

matt you keep talking about doing good rather than evil for the sake of doing it rather doing it for fear of eternal punishment or hope of recieving a reward.

I know you don't believe it and I doubt you'll ever will but God gave us an inherent capacity to do good, I call it the light of Christ, regardless of recieving an eternal reward or fear of being punished.All good things, including the knowledge of discerning right from wrong come from God, not from some evolutionary gene that somehow "evolved".Good and Evil are not evolutionary concepts no matter how you spin it.

In any event God's justice is far more perfect than any world justice as it has all too often has been shown in this world.