With all that said, I do believe we should keep the Church and State separated. I can't see for the life of me how the government can make artificial birth control illegal.

I accidentally ran into this after I wrote this post: "All things in history---in world history and in our personal history----work together for the good of those who love God (Romans 8:28). For Christ is Lord of history, its beginning (Jn 1:1) and its end (1 Cor 4:5). " This came from a book called, THE LAMB'S SUPPER The Mass as Heaven on Earth. It was written by Scott Hahn.

Pat, I admire your courage.
This war on women thing is laughable. I am giggling, not cowering.
Religious insitutions have a right to their own beliefs. Some liberals are totally obsessed with racism, intolerance etc. I am against it too, but then they tell religious people they have no right to think anything is wrong. It is ok to mock them and marginalize them. A definate double standard.

The true spirit of Jesus has been preserved by wonderful saints throught the centuries on to this day.

I'm all for people getting spiritual comfort and guidance from their chosen church and the community that comes with their congregation. I truly believe in the right to practice religion as we all see fit. I'm not out to abolish religion or destroy any other person's faith; but I do fervently believe that the separation of Church ate should be ironclad and immovable. No state religion, but worship anywhere you want on any day of the week you want. Whoops, poor Rich Santorum must be feeling queasy, somewhere. =o)

I just jump off the bandwagon when it comes to another person trying to impose their religion on ME. Or those who announce that their truth is the ONLY truth, and everyone else is going to be a flaming marshmallow in hell. For me, that's a distinct turnoff. =o) If I look askance at Christianity as of today, I just want to say, I'm not singling out the Catholic Church alone for my disgruntlement. Monotheistic religion whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim, has caused a lot of pain millions of different people's lives. Protestantism is no bed of roses either, depending on the denomination. Being compelled to worship in a particularly joyless, humorless protestant church during his boyhood years, the congregation of which lived in the fear that somebody in the congregation might be happy, put my grandfather off religion for the rest of his life.

rated

I can only assume you want debate, as you are not at ChristianMingle.com, but have to a Salon, and I also assume you know the history of Salons, and how they've been used in countries where the church was all-powerful.

A couple things to talk about- The Church began in the 4th Century with Constantine, not the time of Jesus. The Church was absolutely and positively not built on marriage between a man and woman, but on concubinage ... check the Catholic Encyclopedia which is a real resource of truth when you read between the lines. The Saints include Siddartha Buddha- why? The Pope was not a religious leader at all but a political one, and the events of today prove that hasn't changed ... The Papal States were not good to their citizens in many instances ... that's just a few ...

Lets discuss !

Granted the Catholic Church is more tolerant and less tribal than whatever Protestant churches we have here, yet no Christian church follows the moral code of Jesus. Once a religion is organized, self interest politicking follows and the moral code of Jesus is spun and destroyed.

I hate to use such a harsh example, but think hard and dig deep into your relationship with Jesus and answer this question: Would Jesus throw a prostitute in prison?

True Christians follow the moral code of Jesus; anything else is politics. R

The Catholic Church should not be confused with the Catholic faith(ful).

Faith is a beautiful intangible gift in all its manifestations.

What the Catholic Church has done in the name of faith throughout history and the corruption and hypocrisy within its institutional walls is an abomination.

Thanks, Kathy. I feel the same way. There is no war on women. I hate that phrase because the real war is in Afghanistan where people are dying right and left, as well as in other places in the world. (Go to Kony2012.com) With that said, I think the Republicans running for office are nuts. How can you ban the Pill?

You go GIRL! These people HATE Christianity and want to control it too. Thank you for this post. I salute you.

ohusurpher, I'm not here to debate, only to share the truth. The Catholic Church was built upon Jesus and his teachings and his "giving the keys" to Peter, whom we consider our first Pope. The Church was also built upon the old Testament and its Jewish inheritance. Of course there weren't "churches" back then in the form of buildings. That came later. The Church was where the people gathered for Mass. Of course, the Mass came from Jesus' Last Supper. I'm not asking you to agree with me. You can disagree all you want! We are all free to follow our own religions and worship as we please. With that said, I do think we need to keep the Church and State separated....unlike what some of these Republicans want.

Shiral, I agree with you. If you read what I wrote, you would see that. I, too, am against anyone pushing, forcing, or trying to legalize religious beliefs onto others. I am completely for separation of religion and state. I don't want the Mormans, Jews, Muslims, Christian Scientists to push their beliefs onto me nor legalize their beliefs for the rest of us. Church and government don't mix. We have enough history to prove that.

Thoth, I agree. Just because you say you are a Catholic or any other Christian, doesn't make it true. Sometimes there is a difference between being a Christian and following Christ. The Church as an institution has always tried to follow Christ's footsteps. So has its individuals within the Church. Needless to say, there have and are failures. Does that mean we stop trying? I have confidence that when Jesus handed the keys to Peter, he knew there would be mistakes, sins, and weaknesses galore, but it didn't stop Him from passing on those keys....whether they were literal or figurative ones. Thank you for your comment.

V. Corso, what else can I say except, "I agree!" Fortunately, God is larger than all of us, including the Catholic Church. Hopefully, His forgiveness is just as big!

I think you have read me enough to know how I feel about religion in general but I must say that I agree with you that (if there is a God) that he does not give a damn either way. And I don't mean that in the sense that I think He would be uncaring but as you said: ", He understands everything. He gets it. He loves us no matter what." Any God that would be otherwise would not be one I would wish to follow.

I am curious though why the church should be against artificial birth control but advocates "natural birth control" which you say works just as well (although the size of some Catholic families would attest to otherwise, but that may, or may not, be by personal choice). I also question the correlation between abortion rates going up after the invention of "The Pill". Seems a bit at odds to me although I have not seen the studies that may back that up.

I might have thought that a "war" on women was laughable at one point, but there have been so many proposed laws and legislations aimed at controlling every aspect of of a woman's life in the past year that I do believe there is a "movement" underfoot by (atleast some) crazy Republican males. I don't blame the Catholic church any more than any other church. It seems clear to me that religion in general is a big supporter and encourager of these issues.

As Thoth said: " Once a religion is organized, self interest politicking follows and the moral code of Jesus is spun and destroyed. " and this applies to all churches.

Lovey- Salon's are for debate, not for belief in Fairy Tales, again, there are, literally, thousands of Christian sites where the "faithful" can discuss how certain Biblical passages inspire them, despite the only one at all being necessary being the Golden Rule which predates the entire conversation.

"the Mass came from Jesus' Last Supper"- wrong, completely. The "Mass" is the abbreviated "Mysteries" a group of "faiths" which required learning and a certain class rank to attend ... the was taken part and parcel by the Apologists, and "dumbed down" to make it appealing to those who couldn't, for educational or economic reasons, actually attend a Mystery ceremony. Look into it, and consider why you are essentially another Catholic Apologist in a 2000 year old line of said same. It is highly instructive to note that the "Apologies" began at the outset of Catholicism, and continue today ... Early Church Fathers, when confronted with the TRUTH in the form of hard evidence proving their faith to be completely false, responded by saying the DEVIL had time traveled back before their forged scrolls to plant evidence! That is the source of your Church, you can ignore it, but not on a Salon.

Oahusurfer, I'm sorry, but I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about the origins of the Catholic Church. I've been a Catholic all my Church and have been studying the Catholic Faith ever since I was six years old until the present. The Last Supper is our origin as well as scripture and oral tradition. You need to get your information about the Catholic Church from Catholic books and history....not from those who don't know the religion or who are against it.

Again Love, you're in a Salon, not at catechism class. I get my information DIRECTLY from the Catholic Encyclopedia, written by those you profess to respect. It is HIGHLY instructive to read, with the benefit of passing time, the obvious lies, distortions and other highly non-saint like behavior of those now sainted. Again, Buddha is a Catholic Saint- why? Read the Catholic Encyclopedia citation on this "phenomena."

What are salons for? And who made those rules. I believe anyone can opine or discuss anything they want. Readers can choose what they wish to read. Don't stop writing whatever you wish to write, I Love Life. I don't believe in religion myself as I have made known, however I respect and ackowledge yours and anyones write to blog as they wish. Pish Posh! ;)

All good ...and I LOVE your last paragraph!!!

Love is really what it is all about...and always has been!

Open Salon, among other things, is an anti-Catholic web site. By that I mean that you can write anything negative about the Catholic church, true or not, exaggerated or not, unfair or not, and there will be an enthusiastic audience for it. It just has to be negative, that's all. Such posts can even end up on the cover. I've seen posts that were little more than "the pope wears a funny hat" end up on the cover.

There's rarely anything new about these posts and comments. They are rehashes of rehashed rehash. But people around here can't get enough of it. They love it, and anti-Catholic posts typically draw a feeding frenzy of anti-Catholic comments, with people trying to outdo each other with clever comments about just how awful the church is, or about how the writer lost his religion, or about how ignorant Catholics are. These people are intoxicated by their own moral and intellectual superiority, and I suppose they write about these things over and over as a kind of self-affirmation. You'd think they would get tired of it, but they don't.

Thank you for this post! I am not anti-Catholic. I was raised Catholic and up until about 5 years ago was very involved with my church. What happened? A few things. First, I think that the current Pope has set things back hundreds of years, and that is a shame. At least with Pope John Paul II, I felt change was a possibility, now I know it will never happen. Second, my parish had been subject to 5 pedophile priests through the last 8-10 years we had been active in the parish. I felt betrayed, and yes I know there are humans behind this, but the main human behind these investigations at the Vatican during Pope John Paul II's papacy was Cardinal Ratzinger, who is currently Pope Benedict XVI. It had all the intrigue of political backroom dealings. And last, I resented being told how to vote. I voted my conscience, not for war-mongering Presidents. None of us are perfect, that is why we are human. I always say I didn't leave my Church, it left me. I am glad you are able to find comfort in your faith, and I would never force how I believe on someone else.


As a nurse, please realize that hormonal birth control is used in 40% of all cases for non-contraceptive reasons. The woman that tried to speak at the hearing held in Congress was only trying to bring up the fact that a classmate suffered from Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, which caused her to bleed for months on end-she literally had her period for 6 months without a stop. The hormonal birth control pills enabled the bleeding to stop and allowed her to have a regular 5 day menses. The policy at her school did not cover the birth control pill, even though it was not being used for contraception. The pills were $3, 000/year. Non-generic pills can run as high as $180-250/month. That is a lot for a student. That is alot for anyone. This is the woman that Rush Limbaugh called a slut and prostitute-trying to get hormonal birth control pills for a classmate with a MEDICAL condition.

So, it is not always about birth control. R

6er- maybe you can explain the Catholic Sainthood of Buddha, and maybe you can explain why, just the like the Bible, this online version is redacted as any trip to a real library, like say Cambridge, quickly proves:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02297a.htm

While you're at it maybe you can explain the 20,000 known redactions in the oldest version of the LITTLE BOOKS we've got left: ah, the truth, right there in the Codex Sinaiticus and in the Catholic Encyclopedia versions they thought we'd never see, or changed their minds on later, as they always do with the political winds ... it made so much sense in 29 when the Vatican finally wrested its autonomy back, and, in essence, reverted to a Papal State though thankfully sans any abused population. (at least locally)

i'll fight just as hard for your right to believe what you wish to believe as an atheist, i just don't share it.

I think this election is actually showing something about the evolution in the laity. santorum is pulling more protestant fundie votes than catholic. i think it's due to the greater number of catholics who are now educated and the fact that the church, hard as it is for some to believe, has actually lightened up since the priest and nuns told me I was gonna burn for enjoying my body.

Thanks everyone for contributing to this post. I feel the need to remind some of you that even though the Church is against artificial birth control and even though I understand why, I am against the politicians trying to make it illegal. I've said it again, and I'll say it again, I believe in the separation of religion and government. You don't want my religious beliefs, and I don't want yours. If we are to remain the great country we used to be, we must tolerate all religions. We were founded on that principle.....the freedom to worship and to follow our conscience. Politicians like Santorum, are making fools out of themselves and our country as well.

So true!

Who, what, how, and why you worship is your business. I appreciate it when people of faith show respect for different thoughts and viewpoints, and respect that we are a secular nation. It is all about respect. Thank you!
r./

In my eyes, OS has its fair share of ignorant and sometimes nasty comments about all sorts of issues, including comments about religion, politics, sports, science, &c, really almost everything. It's not like Jeopardy; Encyclopedia Brittanica doesn't vet our comments.

For me, part of "playing" on the internet is the acceptance that once in a while "someone says something wrong on the internet". I do not take it as my purpose on this earth to correct these eruptions.

We each make our own choices. Go forth in peace.

Jane writes: "The pills were $3, 000/year."

Let's look at the facts:

1) Fluke's friend's pills were $1200 per year, not $3000 per year. ("After months of paying over $100 out of pocket, she just couldn’t afford her medication anymore.")

2) Sandra Fluke and her friend could afford to pay private law school tuition and fees, $23,400 PER SEMESTER. She could afford to pay at least $5000 for student housing plus all other living expenses.

3) Meanwhile with a Georgetown law degree Fluke's friend was on her way to potentially becoming one of the highest-paid people in the country. Georgetown law claims that the median private sector salary of 2008 graduates is $160,000 per year.

But according to Fluke, her 32 year old friend couldn't afford $100 a month for BC pills. Her friend is so intelligent and enterprising that she could pay for and succeed in a top-level law school, but she couldn't figure out how to pay for BC pills. Fluke says that her friend's mother "desperately desired grand babies," but apparently the woman couldn't ask her own mother to help pay for the pills that would preserve her fertility.

I have to ask: do you really believe that Fluke's friend couldn't have found a way to pay for BC pills? Do you believe that Sandra Fluke herself couldn't afford BC pills at $80 per month? She couldn't take cheaper pills? Couldn't ask her lover(s) to help pay? Couldn't find any way to economize? Couldn't find a cheaper pharmacy? And if worst came to worst, couldn't simply abstain from sexual intercourse while in law school? Does any of this make any sense?

Of course not. Yet Fluke asks us to believe that the only solution is for the federal government to force a Catholic school to provide for BC in its health plan.

Oahu writes: "6er- maybe you can explain the Catholic Sainthood of Buddha," & etc.

I'm not following the question -- what it has to do with anti-Catholic posts and comments on OS, or anything else.

Jane writes: "The pills were $3, 000/year."

Let's look at the facts:

1) Fluke's friend's pills were $1200 per year, not $3000 per year. ("After months of paying over $100 out of pocket, she just couldn’t afford her medication anymore.")

2) Sandra Fluke and her friend could afford to pay private law school tuition and fees, $23,400 PER SEMESTER. She could afford to pay at least $5000 for student housing plus all other living expenses.

3) Meanwhile with a Georgetown law degree Fluke's friend was on her way to potentially becoming one of the highest-paid people in the country. Georgetown law claims that the median private sector salary of 2008 graduates is $160,000 per year.

But according to Fluke, her 32 year old friend couldn't afford $100 a month for BC pills. Her friend is so intelligent and enterprising that she could pay for and succeed in a top-level law school, but she couldn't figure out how to pay for BC pills. Fluke says that her friend's mother "desperately desired grand babies," but apparently the woman couldn't ask her own mother to help pay for the pills that would preserve her fertility.

I have to ask: do you really believe that Fluke's friend couldn't have found a way to pay for BC pills? Do you believe that Sandra Fluke herself couldn't afford BC pills at $80 per month? She couldn't take cheaper pills? Couldn't ask her lover(s) to help pay? Couldn't find any way to economize? Couldn't find a cheaper pharmacy? And if worst came to worst, couldn't simply abstain from sexual intercourse while in law school? Does any of this make any sense?

Of course not. Yet Fluke asks us to believe that the only solution is for the federal government to force a Catholic school to provide for BC in its health plan.

Oahu writes: "6er- maybe you can explain the Catholic Sainthood of Buddha," & etc.

I'm not following the question -- what it has to do with anti-Catholic posts and comments on OS, or anything else.

"Some day, when we're all in heaven, we'll no longer make mistakes." True enough. I know you are a good woman and don't support laws that would be detrimental to our freedom as humans. Nor do you wish to impose your beliefs on everyone. We should each have our God given free will and I agree with that too.

I admit, the Catholic Church is not an institution I favor but I don't like most large institutions especially religious ones. I don't blame the pill for all the social ills listed, people are responsible for their actions. In the same way, I don't blame God for what some religious people do. I love God even though people kill and say it's in God's name. I also know you're a good person and not saying the church should support making birth control illegal.

It's true about birth control being used for more than pregnancy prevention. My youngest developed endometriosis at 16 and had polycistic ovaries. She was treated with different forms of birth control off and on when she could afford it. Unfortunatey she couldn't always afford those little luxuries. At 26 she lost an ovary because one was fibrous and eveloped the entire ovary, it happened in under 5 months. The doctors told her it may not be possible for her to have children, thank God they were wrong. Birth control can save ovaries and lives, shame on those who deny it. They're just lying and I don't like liars.

It's easy to talk about what's good for other people until you're holding your shivering daughter on the bathroom floor as she vomits into her hair from the pain. Given the chance I'd slam my knee so hard into the testicles of self righteous men that they were spitting them out. Then we'd see how they feel when the suffering was personal. I'm quite certain God would forgive me, not sure about their supporters but I care little about the opinions of sadistic old men. That's my personal opinion of what those men are, creepy old sadists. But God loves them too.

Mish- given your inane history here I completely believe you are simply so brainwashed by what no less than Mr. Hawking says is only, "Authority and Control." I'll take his opinion over others, and his predecessor Dr. Sagan who pointed out the if the hating and jealous Catholics, led by one who attained Sainthood for his crimes, the late and so very not great St. Cyril, had not destroyed the Library of Alexandria with their more than huge inferiority complex and attempts to control and wrest authority, we would already be far off in Space right now, should we like to be.

Again, I will live with zero worry taking Hawking and Sagan's beliefs over your fairy tales and misappropriations of Allegory and Metaphor, and political history of Jews oppressed by a Rome who would not let one little province start a revolution- the result of which is the New Testament which has nothing to do with your fairy tales and everything to do with the destruction of the Temple and the The Bar Kokhba revolt and Nero.

As to your misogynist comments on Ms. Fluke, given your medical background you are a total disgrace who ought to take a quick look at The Hippocratic Oath and find a job in a closed room somewhere where women are safe from your Inquisition, Crusade and Witch Burning idolatry. Since you are a man, your opinion means NOTHING when it comes to women's bodies and what they do with them. No tax dollars are used, so your silly Libertine nonsense, hiding behind the Social Contract that protects the weak like you to prey on, among other things, young girls and try to have them die in a back alley or simply from the strain of having a child every year for a decade- KEEP YOUR BIG MOUTH AND YOUR STINKING MIND out of women's issues, unless you get the first sex change allowing your own pregnancy. Men have ZERO right to say anything whatsoever about women's issues, Butt out, and, if you want to break your own religious code of ridicules DARK AGE so called "ethics" then get your own anal probe the next time you need a prescription.

2012 baby- the ship is sailing and your in the dinghy frantically waving but WE AIN'T TURNIN' BACK- not for you and your Focus on Family hater friends, not for your silly fairy tale Church, and, we sail with Jesus, You do not buddy boy.

Imua (Onward)

ps- you might say Hawaiians know a thing or two about religious hate ... your missionary friends planted thorns on the beach to try and make us wear shoes ... that is the type of legacy you provide. Revolting, disgusting intolerance and hate wrapped in the biggest lie ever told.

Ohau writes: "As to your misogynist comments on Ms. Fluke . . . "

Which comments might those be? I'm referencing the actual figures that she recited in her own presentation, and the figures from the Georgetown law school web site.

And what of your diatribe? You mention no figures. You cite nothing from her presentation. You cite no errors of fact in what I wrote. You respond to none of the points that I made. All you offer are hysterical personal attacks.

Oahusurfer, your last comment regarding mishima's comment is way over the top! Where did that all come from?! No one was attacking you like that. I can't help but wonder what you are hiding. There is obviously a lot of anger and hate involved on your part judging from your rant. You are always welcome here, but please stick to the topic and stop the insults and character bashing!

Take your fantasy world and Mish's misogyny to Christian Mingle with the rest of the sheeple. Given we just found yet another "Human Species" that lived during the so-called period of Genesis, bringing the number to 6 co-existing types of humans (primates is all we are) all during the same period (Sapien, Neandertal, "Menehune", Red Deer and Denisovans, oh and possibly still Erectus, all precded by Australopithecus, Homo habilis, and Homo ergaster, given that our DNA is 1-4% Neandertal, or, if you are Asian or from New Guinea, 1-4% Denisovan, then, your entire house of cards is revealed to be a fraud, your church fathers ALL forgers and frauds, and your current "Papa" a Nazi and protector of, literally, thousands of known pedophiles, well, you will have a very difficult time being taken seriously by educated people.

An Apologist is no life to live, wake up before its all over. A Religion literally born of Apologies, then used to wipe out other groups throughout history, is a disgrace to the whole world. Lovey, what say you to the gay Africans your precious brainwashed Priests and their followers kill today? With Rome and Herr Pope's full support.

You support murderers and, how can you support those who would keep you down as a woman, control your own womb, and put people like Mish in charge of female decisions.

WAKE UP- or, like I said, the Catholic Church runs so many brainwashing "discussion" sites for sheep, their the truth won't get in your way.

Again, lets discuss, WHY IS BUDDHA A CATHOLIC SAINT? This question seems to be one you'll ignore at all costs, I've sent you (redacted by modern Roman frauders) proof created by your own, what say you about it? And, if you search for truth, why not find a 10o year old printed version of the Catholic Encyclopedia, published by your precious Pope before he got his precious Papal State back, and cross reference it against the lies, frauds, forgeries and redactions of today's Priests, when not abusing kids?

Your Church is an utter failure, you kill Africans and have failed in the by far most important role in Human Life, protecting our vulnerable children- and rather than imprison or annihilate the abusers, you instead pay Billions of dollars of poor Filipinos and Mexicans hard earned money to make the "crimes" go away.

Until you start dealing with facts you'll get no mercy here!!!

Oahusurfer, how can anyone take you too seriously when you spew forth so much mistruth and hatred of your fellow man? The Church has been around for 2000 years and will continue being around for that much time or longer. There must be "something" good and truthful within it for it to survive like it has. The Truth will always prevail even if hidden temporarily at times. "All things in history....in world history and in our personal history...work together for the good of those who love God. (Romans 8:28) "For Christ is Lord of history, its beginning and its end. (Jn 1:1 and 1 Cor 4:5) I simply realize that God knows all and I trust in His perfect Knowledge and Love.

Oahu writes: "Again, lets discuss, WHY IS BUDDHA A CATHOLIC SAINT?"

As far as I can tell, there are three different issues being discussed at this point:

1) The truth (or not) of the Catholic faith.
2) Whether Catholic universities and employers should be forced by the federal government to provide birth control through their health plans.
3) Whether Sandra Fluke's presentation to congress constituted a good argument for 2) above.

Concerning 1) -- I am not a Catholic nor have I ever been, and I'm just as likely to read a book by the Dalai Lama as I am likely to read a book by pope Benedict. I just don't think that the Catholic church is the source of all evil in the world, and I also see a number of positive things in the Catholic church in particular and in religion in general. Why the Buddha is a Catholic saint is obviously of interest to you. It is not to me, nor, as far as I can tell, does it have anything to do with birth control or Ms. Fluke's testimony and argument.

I'm not a Catholic, but I am a social conservative. So my arguments related to birth control and Ms. Fluke have nothing to do with Catholic theology. My arguments do not reference God, Jesus, the pope, or Catholic dogma, nor do they depend on any of those things.

Concerning 2) -- I don't think that is the proper role of the federal government, and even if it were, I don't think it's a good idea.

Concerning 3) -- I don't think that Ms. Fluke makes a good case for subsidized birth control. It is clear to me that she and her fellow female students could pay for their own birth control, and that there is no good reason why the federal government should intervene. Even if there is a case to be made for federal intervention, Ms. Fluke is not the one to make that case, and she is not a good poster child for federal intervention.

But back to St. Buddha. If that is an important issue for you, then you should write a post about it and lay out your arguments in detail, and what you think are the implications, and I'll even read it. But just throwing it into the middle of some other discussion is not very helpful.

Oahu: " . . . and put people like Mish in charge of female decisions."

I'm not in charge of anyone's decisions nor do I want to be. The situation that Sandra Fluke is in has nothing to do with me. She chose to go to a Catholic school, and could have gone to a different school. She either knew or could have known that birth control is not covered by the school's student health plan. She could economize in order to have more money for birth control. She could look into using less expensive birth control. She could look into getting it at a cheaper pharmacy. She could ask her lover(s) to help pay for it. She could take out an additional loan. She could abstain from sexual intercourse while in law school. She could use the same intelligence and enterprise that got her into law school to figure out a way to pay for birth control while in law school.

All the decisions are hers. All the options are hers. So explain how I am "in charge" of her decisions.

Lovey- you've got a little Math problem, your church is a bit short of 1700 years old, founded by Constantine, the first Pope, not the so-called repenting denier Peter, speaking of dear Petros, do explain to me one of your BIBLIOS (it means little books, you know, all the scrolls tied together, get it?) Big Fat Lies- if, indeed, the Great JC/Joshua said to dear Cephas, "I will call you Peter/Petros as you will be the rock ... blah, blah, blah." Well, dear Lovey, explain to me how this "pun" play on Greek words could possibly have been uttered by an ARAMAIC!!! Ha! There's no way it happened, and a room temperature IQ could quickly decipher it was written by a Greek Speaking Priest many, many years later- how else could it happen? Sigh. Too bad, sooooooo sad. Oh, the JC image you love is merely the appropriation of Zeus:

Check for yourself: http://www.channelone.com/news/gal_wonders/5/ Jew See? (Another Greek Pun, get it?)

Mish- whatever, just stay the hell away from Women, they've had more than 2,000 years of your brand of misogynistic hate.

Oahu writes: "Well, dear Lovey, explain to me how this "pun" play on Greek words could possibly have been uttered by an ARAMAIC!!! Ha! There's no way it happened, and a room temperature IQ could quickly decipher it was written by a Greek Speaking Priest many, many years later- how else could it happen?"

Looks like you've been reading on the internet, perhaps one of the many "skeptical" web sites.

Greek was the language of government, and sometimes also of trade. Many Jews spoke Aramaic, but Greek was also popular, especially among the upper class. Josephus was a priest of Jerusalem, but he wrote in Aramaic and Greek (which could also be used by scholars). It is quite likely that many people in the region spoke both Greek and Aramaic, and reasonable to think that someone for whom Aramaic was the primary language would also know enough Greek to "get by" -- in the same way that in the U.S. many English speakers know enough Spanish to have a conversation. Archeologists have found ancient inscriptions in Galilee in Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew.

Sepphoris was located a few miles from Nazareth, and we know from ancient Greek inscriptions that at least some of its residents spoke Greek. No one knows for sure if Jesus spoke Greek. But it is reasonable to think that he could speak some Greek; there would have been nothing unusual about that. Thus your example is not quite the smoking gun that you think it is.

Oahu: " . . . your brand of misogynistic hate."

I keep asking for clear examples of my misogynistic hate, but you never provide any. You just keep repeating the same phrase. Perhaps it's time for you to move on to a different insult.

Came across an interesting fact the other day, which I'm going to explore more. At one time, Catholic nuns were responsible for caring for 98% of New York City's orphans, abandoned, neglected and abused children.

Well there's lots of pontificating going on here so I might as well join in...:)

I Love Life wrote: "In the end, what counts is love"

This is one of the handful of remarks in this article that I, as an atheist, can completely agree with. Overall I'd say the tone of this post reflects the true spirit of humility, compassion, and forgiveness that Jesus taught. This is a good thing. Too often we see Christian points of view that reflect condemnation, moral retribution, and judgmental anger. It is good to see a Christian that seems to practice the faith, as opposed to the far too many who believe the world would be a better place if they could just control everyone.

I wish those who believe and those who don't believe tried harder to understand one another.

If I actually believed it was possible that Jesus was the son of God, that he was resurrected, that humans had souls, that God existed, I could probably love the Catholic church. But I don't believe any of these things. I once did though, and I can understand the beauty, the emotion, the uplifting ecstatic sense of union with an all loving holy spirit. I once used my imagination to trigger these emotional states and believed I was connecting with a great loving intelligence outside of myself. But I've learned enough to see these things as creations of human culture and imagination. But I believe that people who believe these things are good people (for the most part). Religion draws people in because of their innate goodness.

I can actually agree with the Catholic church on some things. Certainly not on it's position on abortion and contraception, which I think run contrary to nature and biological reality by projecting imaginary supernatural metaphysical concepts onto a fertilized embryos. But like the church, I oppose capital punishment, and like the church I favor compassion for the poor, the sick, the hungry, the lonely, the lost, sad, forgotten, persecuted, weak, and suffering people of the world. I agreed with the church when it opposed the the US invasion of Iraq. Even though in my view the church can be terribly flawed and has and will make horrible errors, I believe it means well, and that in spite of its gaudy wealth and opulence and power and the elaborate campy uniforms of it's supposedly anti-gay priests in drag, and its hypocritical cover-up of its addiction to pedophilia, it does try, in its weakness and flawed mortal mundane manner, to do good in this world.

People can be good or bad independent of whether they are religious or not. But people are mammals, and they are mortal, and they are ultimately fallible.

The religious should also try to understand atheists. To be an atheist confronted with Christian rhetoric requires a great deal of forbearance and patience. To hear Christians talk about the divinity of Christ, and Salvation and heaven and hell and miracles and immaculate conception and virgin birth and the trinity and God wants this, God wants that, God tells me this, God's will be done, etc. it feels a bit like being patient with children's stories of their invisible friends, or tolerating the superstitious who cant go anywhere without their lucky talisman, or who must perform rituals like throwing salt over their shoulder or kissing a rabbit's foot. It's a bit like enduring the meaningless actions of schizophrenics who swat at flies and hear imaginary voices. When George W. Bush told the Jordanian foreign minister that God told him to invade Iraq, that was truly cause for alarm; a man who had lost his senses and his sanity had his finger on the nuclear button and was in command of the United States Armed Forces!!!!!

So if both Christians (and Muslims or other believers for that manner) and atheists/agnostics truly use their imaginations, and open their hearts in a sincere attempt to put themselves in the other's shoes, they should be able to find some basis for compassion for the other.

It's really quite hard for atheists to endlessly be told that without belief in God we can have no morality, and that without accepting Jesus into our hearts we can not be "saved". It's very hard to avoid rolling our eyes and snorting with contempt at the childish simplicity of that. Anyone who has taken even a basic glance at cultural anthropology and evolutionary biology can see how morals evolved as a means of protecting and nurturing life in small tribes of hunter gatherers, that these morals are a natural aspect of homo sapiens behavior and pre-dated the invention of cultural artifacts such as religion, and that what we call evil evolved as behaviors involved in defending the tribe from competitors and interlopers in a struggle for survival when resources become scarce. It is easy to see the universality of human beliefs in gods and supernatural forces as explanations for mysteries that science has long since unravelled. Take a look at Donald Brown's Human Universals, a list of human behaviors that have been found in every single human culture ever discovered and studied, regardless of their location, language, or belief system.

It is easy to see that Christianity is just one more in a long line and broad variety of culturally specific beliefs that can be attributed to a hyper-active agency detection mechanism evolved as part of human consciousness. And our neurobiology is getting closer all the time to explaining how our brain creates our consciousness and our emotions and our behaviors. The beauty of this view is that we are all truly part of the same family, and share the same humanity, and all have the same needs and common goals and desires. We do not need to be separated by race and religion and language and nationality. It is only a matter of learning enough to be able to let go of the primitive ideas that confine and confuse our minds.

Jeff, thank you for sharing your views. Not only do I respect you for who you are, I would love discussing ANY topic with you simply because of the way you present yourself and ideas. I've never had a problem with atheists just like I don't have a problem with any belief system that is not harming others or doing evil in the name of God. This is one of the many things that makes the world an exciting place to be, the diversity among us. I DO have a problem with others who feel the need to put others down for whatever reason and I won't tolerate it for the most part. Who wants to discuss ANYTHING with people like that? From an atheist point of view, I get it. I can see why you don't have any religious beliefs. Not only are some of religious beliefs hard to accept, so much hatred and evil can come from supposedly "religious" followers which makes it all look so absurd and hypocritical. What I don't understand is how anyone can look around us, study science, or anything for that matter, and NOT believe there is some God responsible? I find the smallest bit of life all the way to the most massive forms of life so unquestionably mysterious and breathtaking. Also, why is so hard to believe that we human beings don't know everything and can't even begin to explain it all....seen and unseen? Why is seeing believing? What about that which we don't see or can't see? How do you explain it? Scientists use to think there were only three and then four dimensions including time. Now they are beginning to figure out that there are more than four, possibly nine or ten! Of course it's difficult for our minds to comprehend a spiritual being called, "God," but I have no problem comprehending that what we know is so small and finite compared to what's out there. Why is it so hard for you to believe that there just might be a God? There is so much pointing to His/Her direction.....

I Love Life, (by the way I do too)
I think I can shed some light on some of your questions.

"What I don't understand is how anyone can look around us, study science, or anything for that matter, and NOT believe there is some God responsible?"

In a way what you are asking is how can I look around at the world, at life, at the wondrous beauty and harmony and not feel in awe of it all, and not sense the profound mystery of how and why any of it is here at all and how it can be so magnificent and infinite and glorious and incredible. Well, in fact I do notice and feel these things. It's just that I don't think "God" is an explanation or a satisfactory answer.

To infer a great powerful benevolent being created everything is a natural anthropomorphic metaphor for people who do not know anything about their environment, i.e. people thousands of years ago who were incapable of scientific inquiry and profound systematic rational understanding of all the mysteries around them. It's a very simple idea: people are used to making neat things like clothes, shelter, pots, tools, weapons, etc. People must have spent lots of time making things with their hands long ago. So when natural human curiosity led them to ask how the stars and the sun and thunderstorms and seasons and oceans and rivers and life and everything came to be, it's only natural that they would hypothesize some grand powerful generous being made it all.

But here is the problem with that: hypothesizing God explains nothing. It doesn't tell you about atoms, or electricity or nuclear forces or gravity or space and time or chemistry or DNA or how stars work or how to build engines and computers or bridges or anything. It is a poetic metaphor, but it provides no answers. In fact it is like a damper to learning and understanding because hypothesizing God pretends to be a total explanation to everything, and so it arrests inquiry; it stifles curiosity to know more.

Here is another problem with God: if God made everything, what made God? See how God ends up telling us nothing? This is related to what is known as the Cosmological Argument, which purports to be a rational proof of God's existence, but for the more astute thinkers it just opens up new doubt because it invites the question of infinite regress and invites the questions of "why must there be a first cause?" and "why should that first cause be anything like God, as opposed to, say, swarms of atomic sized ants?".

Here is another problem with God: the universe consistently obeys ordered laws, what we call the laws of physics. If independent actions or events depended on God's will, then we should notice changes or variations in these consistent laws, but we never see that. We don't ever notice a powerful intelligence altering the laws of nature. And religious people acknowledge this, for example when their children are sick, they don't (generally) allow prayer to suffice for healing. They take their children to doctors because they are putting their faith in medical science (because it works best). Prayer does not seem effective in healing sick children (but it can calm the nerves). In my view prayer is nothing more than a comforting form of meditation, but can not possibly have any efficacy on external phenomena.

Now, there are limits to science; we don't have a clear idea of what happened before the big bang; we don't know what if anything lies beyond our Universe. For all we know our Universe could be a bubble of gas in a great sea on another huge realm beyond what we know. So the closest I can get to "God" would be a presence or force or object that is equal to the whole Universe, or the larger existential context that our Universe is part of. I can acknowledge a kind of pantheism perhaps, ala Spinoza and Einstein. But this really isn't God in the way people envision it; it's not an intelligence or a loving benevolent guide that listens to our prayers, has a plan for us, and cares about us as individuals. It's not theism, a personal God.

My view is not a cold soul-less meaningless random Universe of inert matter. Instead I elevate matter to occupy the place that most people reserve for revered spirit. For me all that exists is matter and energy and space and time and light and the Universe, and it is the true miracle (in Latin, it simply means "object of wonder"). There is nothing supernatural, but what is natural and material is fantastic enough on it's own, full of beauty and magnificence and mystery.

And to explain all of this, no God is required. There is no need, and no reason to assume that it came from an "intelligence". In fact imagining such an intelligence just begs the question "where did that intelligence come from".

Our science has compiled pretty clear evidence about the age and origin of our Universe, our solar system, our planet, and all life on earth. It also has provided nearly complete evidence that there is no soul or afterlife, but that intelligence is the activity of the brain. There is nothing living in us that could survive the death of the body. You just have to see how people change with brain injuries or illnesses, or under anesthetics or other drugs to see that our personality, consciousness, intelligence, or any other aspect of human mental capability cannot possibly function without the brain. Examining the neurobiological evidence and thinking rationally makes it nearly impossible to believe in an afterlife. And to me this is a relief; after death we deserve the peace of nothingness. Eternity would get very tiring.

So I can feel awe and reverence for a fantastic existence that is all material, and marvel at the evolution of intelligent life, and feel optimistic about our future, and understand the source of our morality, all without resorting to the "kitchen sink" catch all explanation of primitive peoples, God. I agree that God is an appealing poetic metaphor, but I don't really believe it has any real existence, and I'd have to deceive myself to believe that given the things I know and understand about nature and the Universe.

Further, consider that people end up belonging to the religion of the culture they were born into. If you were born in India you'd be Muslim or Hindu or Jain or Sikh. This is too contingent, too arbitrary to have the ring of truth to me. Too many Gods and religions have been created by humans, and it's too small minded and egocentric to say "the God of my culture is the only real one". That's like saying "only English is the true language" because you were born in an English speaking country.

It is only natural that early humans wanted to explain thunder and storms and seasons and the sun and all the great natural phenomena that scared them or threatened them or that their survival depended on. This is a property of the human mind, to explain mysteries. So many thousands of cultures have created Gods and creation stories and stories of life after death that it becomes clear that the human mind can not think about the world without some explanation for environmental mysteries. The old ones were made in ignorance, thought they involved narrative creativity. In a way religions are just early attempts at scientific explanations for the natural world, explanations that have now been proven wrong. Now we simply have better explanations that replace the old ones.

How could a person witness the death of a loved one, a loving warm charming animated person one moment, who turns into mere inert flesh the next, and not think that something invisible left the body? But if an ancient human came forward in time and witnessed an automobile, they would attribute it's movement to some magic soul-like force inside it. This is simply how the mind works: it attributes agency to things, because we are beings with agency. We attribute agency to tornadoes and earthquakes. We now know how cars work, how the atmosphere and plate tectonics work, and we now know a whole lot about how the brain works. So these old models of agency, the magic inside the car, the magic in the earthquake or the tornado, and the magic soul in our heads are dispelled as old obsolete stories.

So you say there is so much pointing in God's direction; I say no, there is virtually nothing pointing in God's direction.

You're obviously a more eloquent speaker than I am and probably a whole lot more intelligent. Your thoughts make sense to me even though I disagree with some of your premises. You're correct that there are a number of people whose curiosity is squelched possibly because of their beliefs in God, but that's not necessarily true for everyone. Even though I can't prove it, I'm sure not all scientists are atheist. I've got a friend with an academic background in science (biology) and she is not. I've known highly intelligent people that are both religious and non-religious. Some of the most intelligent people I know were Jesuits ranging from Mathematics and Science, to Philosophy and Theology. My degree is in Mathematics and even though my knowledge is limited in Science, I've ALWAYS been curious about life and the unknowns. I love learning and am always open to learning more. As a matter of fact, to this day, at 52 years old, I get so excited when I learn something new! I'm happiest when I'm growing intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. I believe that the more scientist discover, the closer we will get to God. I know this is philosophical, but I belief that God is Truth and that all truths will eventually lead us to Him no matter what discipline.

I'm simply not comfortable with allowing my intellect, or anyone's intellect to be the limit of what is. Just because, I nor anyone else, can "see" or prove the existence of spirits ( i.e. God and angels) doesn't mean they don't exist. I'm ok with my finite brain not being able to comprehend the infinite or explain every phenomena I can or can't perceive with my senses. It doesn't mean I'm not curious about it or don't want to learn more. There are so many things in life that I'm interested in and I can't possibly pursue it all. I happen to gravitate toward theology, mathematics, philosophy, and photography.....possibly because I can understand it.

I also happen to believe that one reason human beings tend to "gravitate" toward God, a higher being, or toward a Creator is simply because of our innate intelligence and souls. I don't think animals below us are doing that. There is something within us that tends toward the infinite. Perhaps it's instinct. Perhaps it's no different than a child craving its parent's love and company. We naturally go toward our creator. Everything has an origin. Yes, I was taught that there is the one Unmovable agent, that which had no beginning. I can't comprehend it, but it doesn't bother me that I can't. I know that I am very small within this vast creation and can't possibly answer it all.

I am acutely aware that those of us who believe in God may be all wrong. I'm hoping that we are not because, unlike you, I like the idea of living forever, especially if it's in the presence of the perfect Truth and perfect Love that I attribute to God. So, I live my life the best I can (with plenty of mistakes and weaknesses) just in case there is a spiritual afterlife that goes on forever. If I truly thought that after this earthly life, that would be it, I know I would live my life differently. I would allow my weaknesses and sinful tendencies to control my life more than they do. Why not?

My question to you is, what happens if YOU are wrong and there is a God? Will you be ready for that? (Judging from your writing, I'm sure you will be.) I happen to believe that anyone who leads a loving life (and I'm not talking about romantic love) will go to heaven. I think the doors are much wider than some people feel.

Once again, thank you for your time and thoughts. I enjoy being challenged.

I also happen to be 52 and have a degree in math. Small world! :)

The Jesuits have excellent academic traditions. A few of my friends got law degrees from a Jesuit school. Many scientists view the study of nature as a study of God's creation. But here is what often happens: as you learn for example how our biology works, how DNA determines a cell's function, allows it to manufacture proteins, and how life replicates and metabolizes, and how life is based on aggregations of molecules and cells and how it perpetuates itself without any need for intervention from a powerful intelligence, the role of God recedes into the distance. Instead of creating and designing life forms, perhaps he created space and time and the laws of physics, and that is enough to give rise to life and account for what we observe and understand about the Universe.

So once you have enough scientific knowledge to go beyond a view of life being God's puppet show, or God's doll house, or God's video game, or some other kind of venture that he actively controls, you must resort to more sophisticated theological concepts, such as God the ineffable mystery, the timeless unknowable intelligence that started all that is. You must think God is all that is, which in my view just means that God is all space, time, matter, energy, etc. and is identical to the Universe, however it got here (pantheism). Or you have to think of God as transcendent, outside our Universe but the cause of it, not intervening, in the Deist sense. But the theistic notions of God who engages with us personally rapidly seems like nothing more than reassuring stories that people have obvious reasons for wanting to believe, but which based on what we know can't have any chance of being true.

And if you learn more about how the brain works, it becomes difficult or impossible to imagine that such a thing as a soul exists; nothing of who we are could survive the death of the body. You see how all the beautiful human qualities, our memory, our goals and desires, our reason, our noblest emotions and our nastiest impulses, really are properties of our brain activity, and that our intelligence is something evolved as an emergent quality of a fantastic adaptable unimaginably complex protein based neuro-circuitry based analog computer. Our brain has more states than there are elementary particles in the universe!

None of this harms our ability to revere existence, experience the joy of living, or to see that our temporary life is most meaningful and best used serving others and making enduring contributions to this great evolution of human life and culture that we all have a role in. We simply must have a more humble view of ourselves than the self-serving and tempting religious view that we are immortal.

Once one sees that the idea of the soul is a product of unsurprising ancient human wishful thinking, and that the idea that humans are immortal is an egocentric artifact of human-centric culture, pretty much most of Christian theology becomes just one more set of human beliefs, such as those of the Greeks, the Aztecs, the Egyptians, and thousands of others that are nice stories, but bear no relation to reality.

What remains is a mysterious concept of an unknowable intelligence or force that we can designate as "God", or "Creator", or "Prime Mover", or "Fabric of Time and Energy". No human brain can probably ever know or understand it's nature, though we can surely try, and we should use our reason to go as far as we possibly can.

So does it make sense to call this mysterious source of nature "God"? Only if you are particularly attached to the word itself, but it's meaning no longer bears much relationship to what most people traditionally have thought of as God. It does perhaps relate in ways to what some of the most esoteric and mystical theologians have conceived of. But just as a tiny mustard seed can grow a great plant, our Universe could have sprung from some very tiny and humble origins. We have no way of knowing that a grand intelligence greater than our own designed and created it. "Design" and "Create" are anthropomorphisms. Existence could just as easily have "grown", as we observe life does; it could have congealed or accumulated and aggregated from the simplest and most basic primitive origins. In so many ways the concept of a grand creator, greater than the Universe itself, simply makes no sense, because then one is left to ask where that intelligence came from, and you are stuck in infinite regression.

So as an atheist I reject the notions of "theism" because they don't seem to me to have any chance at all of being other than narratives invented by people living long ago in relative ignorance; narratives that have helped people, were created by people for people with various purposes in mind. It doesn't mean that I diminish reality or aggrandize my own intelligence by imagining that it is all within our reach to understand. People, by pretending they know God, actually do that: they trivialize the fantastic mystery of existence by reducing it to anthropomorphic terms.

So what if I'm wrong and the contingent human created narratives of Christian belief are in fact true descriptions of natural reality? In that fantastically improbable case, where I survive my death and Jesus is waiting in heaven, I trust that the man I've read about in the Bible would recognize and understand my motives and my sincerity. I have no fear of being judged negatively and tortured by supernatural forces because I don't live according to hatred, selfishness, greed, anger. I'm not an atheist because I hate and reject God out of a desire to be wicked and selfish. I don't hate God; how could I hate what I don't think exists? My life is about learning and loving knowledge and truth, and based on what I've learned I simply can't be honest without excluding the common notion of God or the ancient human cultural myths known as religion from what I perceive to be truth. When my weaknesses overcome me I can admit it and I criticize myself and I work to reform myself. I believe in goodness, because goodness leads to happiness and I think we should all want all people to be happy.

I believe that trying to dispel myths and to develop clear understanding is a path to happiness. They say ignorance is bliss, but ignorance also breeds lots of confusion, jealousy, hatred, hostility, and violence. Whenever someone acts on God's behalf, for example in a holy war or by shooting an abortion doctor or by condemning co-religionists for their false beliefs, they are effectively admitting by their actions that they do not have faith; if they had faith they would trust their God to act on his own behalf, they would trust in the power of their God to enforce his will. The hypocrisy and error of religion is deeply embedded in it, and I think the world would be better off if we left that behind, acknowledged our essential connectedness based on natural principles, such as the evolution of life and the true nature of humans as elegant thriving bio-organisms of the mammalian class. We would be better off to proceed based on real knowledge than to imprison our minds in beliefs frozen in a primitive moment of our history.

I believe Jesus was a man, strictly human as you or I, one with vision and intelligence. My favorite part of the gospels is Matthew chs. 5,6, & 7, where he preaches the beatitudes, teaches how and why one should pray, warns against hypocrisy and public displays of religion, and teaches humility, charity, and to not judge others harshly. These chapters are included in the Jefferson Bible, in which he snipped out the supernatural bits and restricted it to words Jesus actually could have uttered. These teachings seem to me to be rational morality that is good for humanity. I think of Jesus as an intuitive game-theorist, who was teaching his people to leave the eye-for-an-eye zero-sum world of Old Testament moral retribution behind and to move forward into a world of non-zero positive sum games of sharing, charity, caring, and mutual support. It was a wise and intelligent formulation in terms of Jewish traditions to try to build a better society. I think Jesus really wanted to create heaven on earth.

To me the meaning of the crucifixion is not that he died to forgive our sins. If you think about it, that is just an effective church marketing message that gives people an incredible offer that appeals to their egos. We must be responsible for our own sins, and we should work to right them. I think the message of the crucifixion is one of a challenge, an example of sacrificing out of love. The crucifixion shouldn't allow Christians to feel smug and satisfied that their salvation is guaranteed and they can rest on their laurels for the trivial non-effort of simply saying "I accept Jesus"; they shouldn't trumpet their salvation with bumper stickers announcing "I'm saved, are you?" or "Forgiven". That sounds preposterous and morally outrageous to me. I think the message is that Christians should be willing to go to the limits of their ability, even to death if they have the strength, out of love and service to others. Why? It's simple: because we are all in the same evolutionary family.

Mish- that's all you got, more propaganda, I learned all this long before the Web, or even the original text based Internet came to be ... they are called books, written by scholars, not religious twits. You know quite well what you've stated is BS. I stand by my feeling about your attitude toward women, and that as a medical employee you ought to be kept as far away from them as possible ... Lovey, you are just over your head here, I leave you to your rub your rosaries.

Just wanted to put in my two cents' worth, if you can stand another comment. I do believe we all "see through a glass darkly" I'm one of those deeply malcontented souls who has looked at life "from both sides now." Started out Protestant, then became Catholic, then Protestant and now . . . guess what? Leaning Catholic again. I guess I see the contraception question from both sides. Maybe I'm (oh horrors -- now things ARE complicated!) a little bit Buddhist because I see the Middle Way. I think there IS such a thing as an overly contraceptive mentality. For instance, I don't thing it's such a great thing necessarily to go into a 3rd world country and decide, arbitrarily, that what these people need is birth control. After all, they're poor, they shouldn't be having children! There's a danger there, I can see, as well as an arrogance. By the same token my husband and I were once at a point where having one more child would have been utterly catastrophic because we couldn't afford it. I'm not talking about doing without just the "niceties." It simply would have been unaffordable. This is the situation of many, I do believe. NFP may work for some, but what if you're desperate not to get pregnant? Sometimes, in their overzealousness, I do believe some priests go too far in emphasizing the dangers of birth control. While there are side effects, I do not believe it is "poison," nor necessarily directly responsible for all of the things you seem to want to indict it for. Perhaps not everyone is meant to be the mother of 6. Or has the capacity. If someone genuinely feels they would make a poor parent, I don't think they should necessarily give it a go. By the same token, there ARE those who are plainly too risk-averse in life and having a child is definitely taking a risk.

Jeff, as much as you make sense to me, I still can't rule out the possibility of a God and after life. Perhaps I need the crutch to keep me less afraid and more hopeful. Perhaps it does explain the unexplainable for me.....and perhaps, just perhaps, God truly exists. Maybe it does't work for you and other atheists, but it does for me. As I age, the more I improve my spiritual life by deepening and increasing my prayers and attendance at Mass, the more peace and joy I feel. For what ever reason, I am grateful and truly love life. :)

I understand that faith is important for people; I enjoyed exchanging ideas with you; you are very non-judgmental, and very open minded. I hope that maybe you understand a bit more about atheism, because just as the religious often accuse the atheist of having an unsophisticated view of religion, the religious often have a shallow, prejudiced, uninformed view of atheists. I think that atheists usually have the advantage here because a large percentage of them have been religious in the past, yet they were also questioning and inquisitive, and they have thought their way out of faith; faith is something they have come through on the way to atheism, often at great emotional costs; when reason persuades you irreversibly and irreconcilably that what your heart desires to be true is not true, it results in a kind of grieving sometimes. But when that passes it also results in a liberating intellectual freedom.

In the following I think you touched on a profound truth, though maybe not in the same way you view it:

"I also happen to believe that one reason human beings tend to "gravitate" toward God, a higher being, or toward a Creator is simply because of our innate intelligence and souls. I don't think animals below us are doing that. There is something within us that tends toward the infinite. Perhaps it's instinct. Perhaps it's no different than a child craving its parent's love and company."

If you consider the word "soul" to be a metaphor for the whole complex of human subjective feeling and thought, rather than a metaphysical object in its own right, I agree word for word. I think the pull toward religious belief (in the absence of evidence for those beliefs) is strongly bound up in human psychology and human needs, needs that derive from the need of the human child for the security provided by the parent, but also in the need to have a conceptual "something" in our minds in place of the conceptual "nothing" that comes from formulating a question you can't answer. That child-like longing never leaves us fully; we always encounter our limits, our finitude, and there is a natural impulse at that point to appeal to greater power, authority, and knowledge; that trace of the child remains as a fundamental aspect of what a human being is even in adulthood. It is the reason, I believe, that religion uses the parental metaphors: because they are so psychologically powerful. It is only natural that people uninformed about the nature of the Universe, when seeking, in the way that is natural to humans, to imagine in their own minds what the "truth" must be, would hit upon that fundamentally human (mammalian) biological notion of parental love in their narrative explanations why we are here and why the world seems benevolent to a surprising degree.

You mentioned animals, and it actually appears that mammals experience some of what humans do emotionally, though they lack the advanced powers of abstract reasoning we have. I think pet owners sense this intuitively, and experience it. A comparison of the human and mammalian brains bears this out (as compared for example to reptiles, who don't seem to have the emotional equipment of mammals). But check out this story of Chaser the border collie! And watch this video of a dog rescuing another. I suspect that dog's feelings for their owners bears some resemblance to the intense worshipful emotional devotion humans have for God, an unreserved profound love of a higher power. But it lacks the abstract concepts humans can add to their religious narratives.

I don't like to denigrate people's faith because I know it is important and a core fundamental orientation to life; I know that faith provides individuals with comfort and inner strength (I think of this as auto-parenting, a process of tuning the mind not unlike a meditation technique). But in my view letting go of faith and adopting the atheistic, rational, naturalist view of our real surroundings is to fully become adult, to fully accept responsibility. That thought can be dizzying and scary when coming to terms with its full import. In my view leaving supernatural beliefs behind is the natural progression for our culture rising out of its infancy. There is much positive for humans socially and psychologically and morally that is bound up in religion; but the metaphysical claims about what exists outside of the human mind: the universe, the nature of life and intelligence, the origins of life and specifically human life and the fate of humans after death, are the parts of religion that must over time atrophy and fall away because they conflict irreconcilably with what we can clearly observe to be true.