2007 March | Way of the Mind

Monthly Archive for March, 2007

Religion, Doubt, and Freedom

Published

on March 31, 2007

. 30 Comments

A reader called Matt commented the following in another post:

I don’t hate God, but I’ve suffered an insane amount pretty much my whole life and I’ve had lots of hateful thoughts about God combined with bad feelings which I can’t necesarily help.

I’ve been a christian whole life and feel like I’m worst off than most. I felt religion and spirituality had alot to do with my pain (combined with my anxious shitty mental disposition) so have often felt let down and bitter, feeling like religion f’ked me up, but God did nothing to help, feeling like would have been better if never thought about spiritual, religious things relating to God.

Obviously life isn’t fair, one might say as great as God is, he isn’t perfect? I mean who decided to make this earth-even God got mad with it and wiped it out with a flood (in the Bible).

I also feel frustrated with the thought of people going to hell, I mean God (and parents having sex) makes us (much of who we are is not what we choose), how can God condemn his own creation at it’s expense; mind, body, spirit and environment we’re raised in? And what about a bit more responsibility for looking after your creation, I mean what do they call a father who doesn’t look after his kids; dead beat dad? or someone who doesn’t look after their pets? Oh but God gave us free will(did I ask for it?), well my free will is to not have free will if that helps me have a life.

It’s says in bible that God so loved the world that he gave his only son, I’m not disagreeing, but I also think he had a obligation to save us from sin or ultimately hell (God can’t stand sin being so holy). Ok he can’t stand sin so the unsaved soul doesn’t get to go to heaven with him, but wouldn’t it be more loving to not make hell such a horrid place, unless your like an evil tormenting demon. I honestly don’t think Ive ever done anything to deserve eternal burning flames of hell, and if I was a horrible person (honestly how much control does a person have over the type of person they become? -being a product of genes and environment - a born psychotic or abused as a child?).

Maybe their should be like an in between house, where don’t live in heaven or hell, or maybe could just obliterate the unsaved soul so that cease to exist I know what I’d prefer if not going to heaven.

I’m not saying God isn’t good, but right now i feel somewhere along the line that God did the deed and we’re paying for it. But if you really want to hate someone hate Satan, according to the bible his messing things up was very deliberate and selfish unlike the loving God.

Matt: the fact that you have doubts and are courageous enough to admit so and write about them is a step in the right direction. Christianity, like most religions, certainly works a lot by creating guilt (“God loves you! How can you doubt him / not love him back, you monster!?”) and fear of eternal damnation. But, if you have admitted that many parts of Christian theology don’t make a lot of sense, that they even paint God as a somewhat cruel being, why not go all the way, and check every premise that you’ve been taught, or that you’ve always believed in without question, up to and including the very existence of a god?

I’m not trying to “convert you to atheism”, or anything like that (atheism isn’t a religion, anyway). But think about it: if something doesn’t survive honest questioning and investigation, what does it say about that something? If you can only keep your faith by not ever thinking critically about it, what does it mean? I’ve been there, too, years ago: religion, to me, was something I was afraid to think about, to point a flashlight at, because I’d always known — maybe by instinct — that it would all begin to unravel if I did so. So I spent decades of my life afraid to think about religion, just “believing”. Until, one day, enough was enough. As I said, if my beliefs only survived because I was too afraid to think about them, what did it mean? That they were probably wrong, of course.

Even if it turns out there is a god, if he would actually punish you with eternal torment because of honest doubt, because you dared to question and use your mind, then he would be an evil, sadistic monster. If, on the other hand, there turns out to be a loving, benevolent deity after all, he will surely prefer honest doubt and sincere truth-seeking to blind faith and robotic worship, to turning off your mind.

Above all, don’t be afraid. You may be told that “you soul is at stake”, and that doubt leads to hell. But don’t be afraid to question, to express your doubts, and to not be satisfied until you find an answer, even though you may be told that you already have an “answer” and that you shouldn’t ever think about it any more. There’s something else at stake, something I believe is infinitely more real and important than any dubious, unseen, undefined “eternal soul”: your happiness. Your intellectual honesty. Your sense of self-worth and self-esteem. Your respect for truth and reality. Your freedom from fear and guilt. Your life.

All of those are real. They exist, and affect your life, without question — unlike most of the claims of religion, which are far from self-evident at best. And anyone who tells you that the above are meaningless, that your happiness isn’t important, that life is just a test, that you should “hate the world” and your life, and that the only thing that matters is whether you are “saved” from hell, that an unseen “god” owns you and you owe everything to him… anyone who tells you that, is not your friend. “Hell” does exist: it’s living life in pain, guilt and fear. It’s hating yourself for the “sin” of using your mind. It’s believing that you deserve damnation.

I’ve never written about this particular topic before, so I’m probably not the best assistance you (or anyyone else) can get, but if you (or anyone else) have any questions about this, please comment, and I’ll try to answer them as well as I can. Threats of eternal damnation / emotional blackmail, to me or to Matt, will be deleted, though.

The Evil Label Applier of Doom!

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 28, 2007

in definitions

. 1 Comment

I find variants of the following conversation quite annoying and tiresome:

Person: (talks about a concept that (s)he thinks is pretty new and original, but in fact isn’t.)
Me: Ah, that’s (commonly accepted term for that concept).
Person: See, that’s what I mean! Why do you have to apply labels to everything!? It’s impossible to have a conversation with you!

I’m sure that, by “labels”, those people mean “words in the dictionary”… but why do they always have to use that argument? Do they find the fact that the other person insists on using English (or any other language) too “limiting” for their “vast, open, non-prejudiced” minds?

Sigh…
Sorry for the rant. Never mind that.

Christianity without the Bible, part 3

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 27, 2007

in bible, christianity and religion

. 24 Comments

NOTE: You might want to read part 1 and part 2 as well.

From a comment by micah:

Why couldn’t belief in God come from something other than the bible? One doesn’t have to believe the biographies of George Washington are completely true to think that George Washington did indeed exist.

Expanding a little on my reply over there…

For a general belief in “a” god, no. But for Christianity, well, you can’t redefine terms. Much like you can’t say “I’m a vegan, but I eat meat,” you can’t say “I’m a Christian, but I think Jesus, if he existed, was just a man.” Both of those contradict the main point of the definitions!

Now, if you DON’T contradict the definitions, and believe in the divinity, sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus, and accept him as your savior, but refuse the Bible… well, there’s a problem, since there’s nothing else about Jesus from even NEAR his time. The 4 gospels were written decades after his death (and contradict one another, but that’s another story), but non-Christian literature only started to mention Jesus centuries after his death, and at a time when there were already many, many Christians; in other words, it was second-hand (or third-hand, because the only thing those Christians had was the gospels, and oral tradition) information at best.

So, how do you know whatever Jesus was, did, or say, without the Bible? How do you know he even existed?

Unless you’ve had a “vision” or dream of Jesus (and we know how reliable those are…), either you use the Bible, or you make up your own “Jesus”. I really don’t see any other possibilities here.

A damnable doctrine

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 25, 2007

in atheism, christianity, quotes and religion

. 4 Comments

I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.

– Charles Darwin

Religious "moderates"

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 22, 2007

in religion

. 4 Comments

One of Sam Harris’ main points in his books and newspaper columns is this: that religious moderates protect religious fundamentalists. By “protect”, he doesn’t mean that the moderates actually try to actively defend them, but that they have effectively made it so that religious beliefs (of any kind) are “uncriticizable”, something that must be “respected” (unlike any other kind of beliefs).

Some atheist bloggers agree with Harris; others disagree. For the record, I agree with him on this one. He’s not “blaming” moderates in the sense of “Muslim moderates are guilty of 9/11″, or “Christian moderates are responsible for abortion clinic bombings”. He’s saying, however, that the moderates give an appearance of “niceness” to those religions, and that, as I said, because of the moderates, you can’t, these days, blame religion for anything without being seen as a bigot of the worst kind. Religion, apparently, is above rational discussion, above criticism.

There’s also a third kind of believers: the liberals. Those are the most harmless ones, I guess, though they are so mainly because they don’t take their religion seriously; as Harris says, they actually don’t really know what they believe, and have never thought about it; they just like the feeling of going to church, and of “belonging” there.

Want to see the difference between the three? I’d say it’s easy.

A liberal might say “yes, the Bible says that gays should be killed, but how do we know that that part was realy inspired by God? My God is a loving God, and I’m sure he loves everyone, no matter their sexual orientation”.

A moderate would say “gays should not be full citizens; God doesn’t like them. It says so in Leviticus, and Paul repeats it later: homosexuality is an abomination.” If asked, he will say that gays shouldn’t have the same rights as everyone else, though he won’t actually advocate violence against them… though, if any occurs, he won’t condemn the perpetrators, or shed any tears.

A fundamentalist — a true fundamentalist, that is –, would kill homosexuals. The Bible commands so; who is he to question the word of God?

Now, you may argue that those I call “moderates” are really fundies, and those I call fundies are psychos, nutcases, etc.. But… what is really the difference between the 3 examples?

The difference is how seriously they take the Bible. Just that. If it’s just “stories”, from which you can learn something, but shouldn’t be taken literally, you’re a liberal; if it’s a moral guidebook, you’re a moderate. If it’s the absolute, literal word of God, and you really believe that doing the work of God is more important than obeying man’s laws… you’re a fundamentalist.

I’d also add that many moderates, in my opinion, would like to be fundamentalists, if they had the “guts” to do it. If they didn’t enjoy their lives or their freedom (that is, not being in prison) so much. The Bible really tells believers to be fundamentalists in every way. That’s why, in my opinion, moderates never really criticize fundamentalists… even after acts of terrorism!

After all, what can they do? They can’t fight them with scripture, since scripture is really on the fundies’ side! It’s the moderates who are disobeying part of it… and I’d guess that many of them feel ashamed of doing so.

FAQ: To say "there is no god," you need as much faith as to say the opposite.

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 22, 2007

in atheism, atheism faq and faith

. 5 Comments

In other words: we can’t look at the entire universe, we’re not omniscient. How can we say, for sure, that something doesn’t exist in the whole universe, without using a degree of faith — that is, belief without evidence to support it?

Well, it depends, in a way, on what you mean by “no god”: not that god, or no god at all?

It’s very likely that, by “god”, you mean the Judeo-Christian god, Yahweh, as described in the Bible. If so, I can answer that one easily: do you need faith to say Odin doesn’t exist?

I’m sure that you don’t. You have no reason to believe in Odin, no evidence of his existence. Besides, Odin and all the other Norse gods are clearly anthropomorphic; that is, they’re exactly like humans, only “bigger”, more powerful. But with the same emotions, traits, character flaws, of humans. It’s safe to say that he’s made up by ancient Norsemen.

Well, all of that applies cleanly to your god, too! That’s why one doesn’t need any “faith” to say that he’s been invented by men, because there’s a lot of evidence in that direction, and exactly zero in the opposite one.

Besides, there are many logical arguments against the existence of an entity such as the Judeo-Christian god. Take the omnipotence paradox, or the problem of evil. The former is logically self-contradictory; the latter requires such convulted excuses (follow the link, they’re all examined in detail there) that it soon gets ridiculous.

But maybe you didn’t mean a god like that. Maybe you’re talking about a vast, cosmic being, who didn’t create the universe, but who is the universe. A being who, because it wasn’t invented by men, doesn’t have human traits; who isn’t focused on, or probably even aware of, our insignificant little planet, who isn’t concerned with trivialities (in the cosmic sense) such as “prayer”, “sin”, or “the afterlife”.

As suggested here, such a being, if it existed, would be completely undetectable by us, would not in any way interfere in our lives, or be concerned with us at all. In every possible sense, it is as if it wasn’t there; nothing we could do would affect it in any way. Much like the “do we live in a perfect computer simulation” questions, it is most likely impossible to know, and ultimately irrelevant to our lives (though there’s nothing wrong with being curious).

In both of the above cases, there’s also something definitive against the “you need faith to say it doesn’t exist” position: burden of proof. It’s always on the side of whoever claims something exists, and it’s him who has to provide evidence for that existence. If he doesn’t, the logical position is to say that his claim is false, and no “faith” is required for that.

An experiment

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 21, 2007

in bible, christianity and religion

. 7 Comments

I want you to picture yourself performing the following experiment:

1- Pick about 30 books at random. Really, randomness is important. The books are supposed to be of varied genres, authors, and so on, and it doesn’t matter whether you’ve read them before or not. The sample is supposed to include many different kinds of books: technical, political, fiction, children’s, philosophical, erotic, poetry, whatever. Don’t restrict yourself to books you figure you will like, or authors you think you agree with. As I said, randomness is vital. The best way would be for a computer to pick books from a huge catalog, randomly.

2- Read them all. Whenever you find something you agree with, or something you find inspiring or insightful, remember it. Bookmark and/or underline those parts, or copy them somewhere else.

Note: there’s no need for artificial “fairness”. Don’t feel like you have to pick at least one thing from each book, or that you must take equally from each. It’s perfectly OK to take a lot from a book and nothing from another.

3- Forget about everything you didn’t mark or copy. From now on, think of the parts you marked or copied as the “core” of those books, as the truly meaningful parts of them.

4- Use the parts you collected as a “guidebook” for your life, as a wonderful source of wisdom, knowledge and morality. (Ignore the fact that you picked whatever you already believed or agreed with.) Follow that guidebook for the rest of your life. Defend it, if necessary.

Strange experiment, isn’t it? But you probably already know what I’m getting at. I’ve just described, in a way, what virtually every Christian does with the Bible. (Those who actually read any of it, that is.)

The “random books by different, random authors” part was important, because the Bible isn’t only one book, it’s a collection of several, written by many authors who never met each other, sometimes separated by centuries, and who sometimes contradict each other. Not to mention that some parts are song lyrics, some are proverbs, some are (highly biased) history accounts, and some are laws or moral rules.

So, most Christians pick the parts they already agree with, ignore the rest, and call their favorite parts “the core of the Bible”. You’re a nice person? Pick the few love / forgiveness parts (mostly in the Gospels). You’re a bigot? Pick Leviticus, or Paul’s books in the NT. You’re suspicious of science and secular knowledge? Pick Genesis, along with some parts from Job. Want to believe God is good, loving, and just? Ignore virtually all of the Bible, and invent your own God in your mind, with the traits you want him to have (but keep calling yourself a “Christian”).

And, no matter what you do, defend the parts you’ve picked as if they represent not only the entire Bible, but Christianity itself.

Parenting Beyond Belief

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 21, 2007

in atheism and books

. 1 Comment

Like several other members of Planet Atheism, I want to mention a new book, Parenting Beyond Belief.

Even though I’m not a parent (yet), and I live in a non-fundamentalist country (Portugal) where there’s not any kind of social pressure to raise kids as Christians (or members of any other religion), I’m still very interested in it — mostly, because I like to learn, and I’m sure the essays contained in it will be a fascinating read. Besides, it’ll help me get a better view of what life is for a non-theist in a fundamentalist, religious right-controlled society like America seems to be (at least sometimes). Maybe I’ll understand better how nutcases like this “Dick” can exist…

Anyway, the Parenting Beyond Belief web site is quite interesting, with a nice FAQ, a forum, and links to other resources.

The point of the Hitler and Stalin Cliché

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 19, 2007

in atheism and morality

. 8 Comments

Alonzo Fyfe, of the excellent Atheist Ethicist blog, wrote, a a few days ago, a post called The Hitler and Stalin Cliché. As Alonzo writes, that cliché

[...] is the argument that there is something fundamentally and foundationally wrong with atheism because Hitler and Stalin were atheists – and look what they did.

Alonzo’s post, in a nutshell, says the following: that it’s useless for atheists to give “history lessons” to believers, since they a) don’t really care about history or any of those pesky “facts” stuff, and b) they are already inclined to distrust atheists (they see us as “enemies of God”, “servants of Satan”, and so on). Besides, he writes, by saying “but Hitler wasn’t an atheist!”, you are, in a way, implying that, if he were, you would be responsible for it. According to Alonzo, that’s the point we should address: that atheists aren’t responsible for Stalin’s purges, much like modern Christians aren’t responsible for the Inquisition and the Crusades.

I can’t disagree with any of the above. However… I feel that Alonzo may be missing the point of what the theists’ accusations really mean.

It’s not a question of guilt by association. They’re not blaming us for Stalin’s atrocities. What they’re saying is that atheism leads to atrocities like Stalin’s. And that point, I think, really needs to be addressed.

Now, the detail we go into depends on whom we’re talking with. Talking to a believer who is honestly trying to understand atheists and atheism is completely different from defending ourselves from someone who demonizes us and accuses us (and “godlessness”) of being the cause of all the evil in the world. (In fact, arguing with the latter is probably a waste of time.)

We can say, as Alonzo indeed writes further down his post, that atheism says nothing about morality. All it means is that there is no God, therefore, pleasing a deity — or being afraid of it — shouldn’t enter into our decisions. Atheism isn’t a set of moral rules — and it isn’t meant to be. In my opinion, that needs to be explained to any honestly curious believer.

Now, if we accept the above, then when someone says that “X did something bad because of his atheism”, he or she can only mean one thing: that there was no fear of eternal punishment preventing the atheist from doing that. As I said in Without belief in an afterlife / fear of hell, how can people be moral?, that’s a pretty lousy source of morality, and only makes believers look bad, since the implication is that they would be stealing, raping, killing, and committing all other kinds of atrocities if they weren’t afraid of hell. And, so, they believe that that’s exactly what atheists do all the time, since we’re not afraid of divine punishment. That’s what they’re implying when they use Stalin as an example of “atheist morality”.

The point should not be, indeed, whether Stalin was an atheist or not, but whether his actions were in any way related to his atheism. Since atheism says nothing about morality (much like “Santa isn’t real” doesn’t), I say that they weren’t.

Interestingly, there are actually many parallels between Stalinism and Abrahamic religions, including rituals, the worship of a father figure, pictures of Stalin (or Jesus, or a cross, or…) in every home, the acceptance of a lot of irrationality as non-questionable dogma, and a deep distrust of scientists, intellectuals, and of skepticism in general. After all, a religion doesn’t really need a supernatural element… and I think I could build a case for Stalinism as a religion. But I’ll leave that for a future post.

Awe: religion and science

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 19, 2007

in religion and science

. 3 Comments

A recent comment in Carl Sagan: little gods suggested that religion provides awe, and science doesn’t; therefore, science will never be enough, since we thirst for something more — to be awed.

The problem with that is that the awe of religion is the awe of not understanding. And you aren’t even supposed to understand, in fact. You’re supposed to “just know” (since it says so in a holy book), but never actually think too hard about it. It’s the awe of ignorance.

On the other hand, the awe of science is the awe of beginning to understand. It’s the awe of a child, when he realizes that there’s a wondrous universe out there, and that he can understand things about it - that there’s an infinity of new things to learn. It’s the awe of starting to grasp something, and realizing that it opens so many new avenues, that there’s so much out there that you can now comprehend — or begin to.

In fact, it’s religion that is resistant to awe.

Take the example in Sagan’s quote. Once, we didn’t really see much of the universe, and we understood it even less; to us, it probably appeared magical. We thought it was young, ridiculously small, and that our world (which we also believed to be much smaller than it is) was at the center of the universe. Anything we saw on the sky was close to us, and not really that big. Many things — the sun, animals, plants, etc. - were so useful. Therefore, it was natural to conclude that the universe was made just for us.

And, as that was what people believed back then, so it was included in religion.

Much later, we began to realize that the universe was much larger, much older, and that there was a lot of stuff out there. Nebulas, pulsars, stars of many sizes. Entire galaxies. And space - distances almost inconceivable to us (have you ever thought about how much a single light-year is? Try calculating it, just for fun.) And it had also been there for much longer than we first thought — indeed, for much longer than our puny little planet, or our puny little sun.

To me, that’s like being blind, and suddenly starting to see. To me, that is awe. Beginning to understand.

As Sagan says, religion could have made use of it. It could have used this newfound vast universe to show a much greater god, an infinite, complex, cosmic god, a deity that wasn’t restricted by what little was known by Bronze Age shepherds. A god who didn’t reflect the prejudices of its time, and who didn’t act much like a human, only “bigger”.

But no.

They’d rather keep their deities small and petty, our earth absurdly young (despite all the physical evidence to the contrary), our universe as an irrelevant backdrop for the real reason everything exists: to decide whether our souls are saved or not.

Can you really be awed by that, after you know the least bit about what the universe is really like?

Why worship God at all?

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 13, 2007

in religion

. 5 Comments

A technique I like to employ when discussing a subject is to say: “OK, let’s say you’re right,” and then follow it to the logical conclusion.

For instance: I don’t believe there is a god. But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that there is one. Let’s say he is a typical monotheist deity: created the world, has some rules he wants obeyed, desires our worship, never provided evidence of his existence except for some old books, and sends people to paradise or eternal torment after they die.

My question is: even assuming the above, why worship him at all?

I believe that this is a subject most theists never actually think about. Does God (Yahweh, Allah or a similar one) deserve worship? Why? Why should we ever make him an important part of our lives?

There are several common theist arguments, and I’ll try to answer each.

1- “Because otherwise you’ll go to hell.”

That’s nothing but an argument from intimidation. “Worship me… or else”. It’s not much different from supporting a brutal warlord, a dictator, or the Mafia. I’d like to believe that such a being should be opposed with all our might, not obeyed. Live free or die, and all that. We are not slaves, or playthings… to accept being so is cowardice, and a being who treats us as such is a monster.

2- “Because God created the entire universe, including us.”

The implication is that, if we owe our very existence to someone, our lives are his. But… do children belong to their parents? I don’t think so.

If there really was a god who created us, if he did communicate with us, he might deserve our thanks. But not worship. Not slavery. Sentient beings are not property — even if they are created by someone else (much like, if we ever create true artificial intelligence, such beings should have rights. Sentience deserves freedom.)

3- “Because God is good.”

This might deserve a full post about it, but, basically, the God that’s described in the Christian Bible or the Qur’an is, by human standards, anything but good. I could go into detail, but, basically, Richard Dawkins said it best:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Dawkins wasn’t trying to offend people when he wrote that. All of the above is in the Bible.

“Ah,” many theists will say, “but we can’t apply human standards to God.” That is, however, an argument from authority, and a circular argument. “God is good because God says so.” makes as much sense as “Hitler is good because Hitler says so.” And if we say that “good” is defined by “what God wants”, then morality becomes arbitrary, it becomes simply a question of pleasing a ~~dictator~~ deity. More about that in The Morality of God.

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that all of the above was incorrect (it isn’t), and that God, by rational standards, was indeed good. Even so… is that sufficient reason to worship a being? Respect him, probably. Admire him? Very likely. Use him as an example to follow? Maybe. But “worship”?

4- “Because God is far superior to us.”

Again… so what? If some advanced aliens arrived on Earth, would we worship them? Should we? Would they deserve our worship? And if they demanded it, what would it say of them? (Mostly, that they were pretty insecure advanced beings. )

You are much more advanced than ants; do you want ants to worship you?

Who ends up in in "heaven"? Something to think about…

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 10, 2007

in christianity, intelligence and religion

. 5 Comments

There have been several studies in the past whose conclusions were this: that the more intelligent and/or educated you are, the less likely you are to be religious.

Now, let’s imagine, for a minute, that the Christians are right. About everything. In other words, not only is there a God who judges people and either sends them to heaven or to hell, but he also likes/wants what Christians say he does; in other words, blind faith = good; honest doubt = bad. The Bible says as much, and quite often, too.

What’s the only possible conclusion? That heaven is full of morons! Rednecks, bigots, fundamentalists, anti-intellectuals, and the like! If the Christians are right about what their god wants, then only idiots will go to heaven; anyone with a functioning, questioning brain… anyone who says “wait a minute, this does not make logical sense!…” will surely go to hell.

Assuming the above, my question is: can a place full of idiots truly be called “heaven”? A place where you can’t have a single intelligent conversation? I don’t think so.

Much like the Muslim “72 virgins” vision of an eternal reward (which really was the greatest reward some primitive desert nomads could conceive of…), the Christian version of heaven totally fails to “sell itself” to anyone who actually takes a few minutes to think about it.

As someone once wrote, if heaven is a place full of Christians, I’d rather be in hell instead. Not that I believe either exists, of course… it’s that pesky “evidence” thing, again.

(Note: I’m not implying something like “if you’re a Christian, you’re a moron”. I’m just following on the fact that, as has been shown again and again, the more intelligent you are, the more likely you are to be a non-theist. If you go from that, then the dumber you are, the more likely you are to be a true believer… so, statistically, most idiots go to heaven and most geniuses are, supposedy, burning in hell for eternity.)