March 2012
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February 2012
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Andrew Sullivan: I have never doubted the existence of God. Never. My acceptance of God’s existence--of a force beyond everything and the source of everything--goes so far back in my consciousness and memory that I can neither recall “finding” this faith nor being taught it. So when I am asked to justify this belief, as you reasonably do, I am at a loss. At this layer of faith, the first critical layer, the layer that includes all religious people and many who call themselves spiritual rather than religious, I can offer no justification as such. I have just never experienced the ordeal of consciousness without it. It is the air I have always breathed. I meet atheists and am as baffled at their lack of faith--at this level--as you are at my attachment to it. When people ask me how I came to choose this faith, I can only say it chose me. I have no ability to stop believing. Crises in my life--death of loved ones, diagnosis with a fatal illness, emotional loss--have never shaken this faith. In fact, they have all strengthened it. I know of no “proof” that could dissuade me of this, since no “proof” ever persuaded me of it.
Sam Harris: You appear to see some strange, epistemological significance in the fact that you cannot remember when or how you acquired your faith. Surely the roots of many of your beliefs are similarly obscure. I don’t happen to remember when or how I came to believe that Pluto is a planet. Should I say that this belief “chose me”? What if, upon hearing that astronomers have changed their opinion about Pluto, I announced that “I have no ability to stop believing?. I know of no ‘proof’ that could dissuade me of [Pluto’s planethood], since no ‘proof’ ever persuaded me of it.”
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Anonymous asked: Why are you so hot for Cornel West? He promotes God and is a God fearing man?
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Anonymous asked: Have you always been an atheist?
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i think it is really scary that one of the people...
because-evil-is-fun:
why can’t we just have a free thinking rational atheist as presidential candidate for once?… in this day and age it scares the shit out of me that one of the two parties we are forced to pick our next “leader of the free world” from are nothing but a bunch of nit wits, fetus-fetishists, magic underwear wearing, woman oppressing, gay bashing, fundamentalists and...
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Just When You Wish It Couldn't Get Weirder ...
politicalprof:
It turns out the Mormon Church baptizes Jews killed in the Holocaust so they can get into Mormon heaven. Ah.
h/t: Slate.
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“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all...”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson (via killthecashcow)
“It surprises me how disinterested we are today about things like physics, space,...”
– Stephen Hawking
(via crownedrose)
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Understanding original sin
The story about Adam, Eve and the serpent in the Bible’s book of Genesis is very important to Christians. This story, also known as “the fall of man” and “original sin,” is so important because it explains a great many things about Christianity and the Christian God.
For example, the story of “original sin” explains why an omnipotent God allows so much...
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