Posted inGod Politics

School board ditches pledge of allegiance due to “under God” language

Nice to see the Fargo, North Dakota school board did the right thing and stopped saying the Pledge of Allegiance at its meetings after a school board member made some great arguments about why this didn't fit with their policy of inclusion. After all, "under God" does indeed refer to the Judeo-Christian god. If the pledge said "under gods, or no god," that would be an accurate reflection of the wide variety of religious beliefs in the United States, which includes atheists and agnostics who don't believe in any god. To see a brief video of the persuasive argument used…
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Posted inGod

If God doesn’t exist, what difference does this make?

If my wife didn't exist, that would make a huge difference in my life for the worse. Same goes if my daughter, her husband, and my granddaughter didn't exist. I'd feel the loss terribly. But when it comes to God, so what?  God has had absolutely zero influence on me during my 73 years of living. I've never had any sort of relationship with God.  The only effect God has ever had on me came from my attitude toward God, my belief or lack thereof in God, my imaginings about God.  So if God exists, or if God doesn't exist,…
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Posted inGod Humor

How to reply to 14 crazy things religious believers say

Since it's July 4, Independence Day, here in the United States, I thought I'd mark the occasion by composing 14 replies to some crazy stuff religious believers might say. This is in line with my commitment to spiritual independence. And also because, as I said in a post on my HinesSight blog, I'm not feeling good about our political independence these days. Enjoy... If someone says, God must exist eternally, because the cosmos couldn't create itself, reply: If nothing created an eternal God, then nothing could have created an eternal cosmos, the difference being that the cosmos clearly is real,…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus God

How the heck could God create humans in her own image?

Today I was planning to write about another subject, but after responding to a commenter who embraces the idea that humans are made in the image of God (who I prefer to view as a nonexistent female, hence this blog post title), I went with that notion. I'm not sure why Andrew Stephens shared the links in his comment. I'm assuming he uses Musk and Harari as examples of godless secularists, which probably is accurate. Personally, I admire both of these men, being a happy user of Musk's groundbreaking Starlink satellite internet system and having enjoyed each of Harari's brilliantly…
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Posted inFundamentalism God

Delusion of imagining you’re an instrument of the divine will

Here's a right-on illustration by L.K. Hanson. I saw this on a Facebook post yesterday. The person who shared it said that Hanson's work appears in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. When people talk about being a special instrument of the divine will, I'm reminded of Garrison Keillor's description of his fictional Minnesota small town, Lake Wobegon, “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” In the world of fundamentalist religion, all the believers are especially attuned to God's will. Which can't be, given how different religions typically are from each other.…
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Posted inGod Religions

Will Smith thinks God called on him to slap Chris Rock

In case you're one of the few people in the world who isn't aware of what happened at the 2022 Oscars show last night, here's a recap in a New York Times story.  Will Smith apologized to the comedian Chris Rock on Monday evening for slapping him during Sunday night’s Oscars telecast after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which administers the awards, denounced his actions and opened an inquiry into the incident. ...The incident unfolded Sunday night after Mr. Rock made a joke about the buzzed hair of Mr. Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who has alopecia,…
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Posted inAtheism God Religions

Fear of God’s wrath is a lousy reason to be religious

Life is difficult. This is something almost everyone can agree on, believers and atheists alike. But only religious people add to life's difficulties by imagining God inflicts pain and suffering on those who don't comply with whatever commandments their religion believes in. I was a Catholic briefly as a child. I readily admit that I've never learned why confession is, or at least was, a big part of being a Catholic. I simply remember that as part of my first communion, I had to confess my sins to a priest. Being so young, I wasn't much of a sinner. So…
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Posted inAtheism God Religions

What if God hates religions?

I'm an atheist who likes to imagine how God thinks. What allows me to do this is the same reason anyone is able to make a claim about God. Since there's no convincing evidence that God exists, every person has an equal opportunity to imagine what this non-existent entity is like -- in much the same way that anyone can come up with a fictional story about characters they conjure up in their mind. So I enjoy visualizing how irritated God is at religious people. God is fine with people who use drugs, drink too much, watch porn all the…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth Delusions God

Atheists more likely to believe in paranormal than religious people

Just in time for Halloween, a few days ago the New York Times had a story, "Many Americans Say They Believe in Ghosts. Do You?" No, I don't. I also don't believe in God. But lots of atheists do believe in paranormal phenomena, according to the story. There are a number of different ways to quantify belief among Americans in so-called paranormal phenomena. One way is to ask a selection of people representative of the population if they believe in ghosts. In a 2019 IPSOS poll, 46 percent of respondents said they did. Another is to ask what they fear.…
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Posted inAtheism God

Why it makes no sense to ask for evidence that God doesn’t exist

Over the years I've written numerous blog posts about the near-impossibility of proving a negative such as God doesn't exist.  This isn't the way both science and common sense work. We don't ask for evidence that invisible fairies aren't making our cars move. Since cars have engines, or motors if they're electric, there's lots of evidence in favor of engines/motors, so no need to deal with the invisible fairy hypothesis. Same is the case with God. Or at least how atheists look upon God.  Below is how Armin Navabi addresses this issue in his book, "Why There Is No God:…
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Posted inAtheism God

I’m an atheist who has a personal relationship with God

The title of this blog post is surprising, right? How is it possible for an atheist to have a personal relationship with God? Answer: it's easy. I simply define "God" a lot differently than religious believers do. As described in Atheists should redefine "God" as all that exists, I look upon God as being synonymous with reality, or existence. So I find God awe-inspiring, mysterious, impossible to fathom.  After all, the greatest mystery -- one which almost certainly never will be unraveled by humans -- is that existence exists. Or as the mystery often is described, why is there something rather…
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Posted inAtheism God

Atheists should redefine “God” as all that exists

The word "God" has a strong hold on people. So strong, even atheists sometimes use it, as in "God damn it!" Or "God bless you" after a sneeze.  So I've come to believe that we atheists need to appropriate "God" for our own purpose -- living without superstition, supernatural fantasy, and blind faith.  There's nothing wrong with that word, just as there's nothing wrong with any word. A word is simply made up of letters. The meaning those letters represent is entirely in the hands of humans. Unlike "gravity," say, there is no objective reality that the usual meaning of…
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Posted inGod Science

If “God” is all there is, science is the way to know God

The August 16, 2021 issue of The New Yorker has a fascinating article about the new James Webb Space Telescope that will be launched soon. It will be much more powerful than the Hubble space telescope.  I liked the end of "The Youthful Universe." You can read it below. Science truly is our best way of learning about "God" -- if by that word is meant everything that exists. That's how I've come to view God. Sometimes during my day I'll say, "Thank you God." I'm not thanking a divine being. I don't believe in supernatural entities. Rather, I use…
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Posted inGod

Sorry. No winner in “Tell me why you believe in God” contest.

Well, the first entries are in, and I'm not impressed.  Four days ago I invited visitors to this blog to leave a comment on my "Tell me why you believe in God" post.  I said: I'm defining "God" as a conscious supernatural being with miraculous powers. If you're a believer with a markedly different definition, include that definition in your comment. The responses were decidedly underwhelming. Some were interesting, but none were directly related to what I wanted. Why someone believes in God. This is surprising, since it sure seems like quite a few regular readers of this blog do believe…
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Posted inGod

Tell me why you believe in God

I'm a curious guy. I enjoy learning how people view the Big Questions of Life, including one of the biggest, Does God exist? I used to answer "Yes." Now I'm an atheist who says, "Almost certainly, no." But I'm well aware that many of those who visit this blog and leave comments on the posts here are believers in God. So I'm inviting you to leave a comment on this post that explains why you believe that God exists. Or, if you have some doubts about this, why you're almost certain that God exists. I'm defining "God" as a conscious…
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Posted inBooks God Science

“The God Equation” is about Einstein’s impersonal god

I bought theoretical physicist Michio Kaku's latest book, The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything, after seeing him interviewed by Stephen Colbert.  I enjoyed the book, though I agree with some Amazon reviewers that it doesn't really break new ground. But since my understanding of the old ground is shaky, I enjoyed Kaku's take on familiar topics. Particle physics. Relativity theory. Quantum mechanics. Big bang. The search for common ground between how relativity and quantum theories view reality. String theory. Spoiler alert: physicists haven't yet come up with a viable Theory of Everything. String theory is the…
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Posted inBooks God

Humans create God, not the other way around

Since there is no demonstrable evidence that God exists, where does the concept of "God" come from? Obviously, from the minds of humans. We create the idea of God, which includes the fantasy that God created us. The November 9, 2020 issue of The New Yorker has an interesting review of a book by a Stanford anthropologist, T.M. Luhrmann, "How God Becomes Real." Basically, by people doing things that conjure up their imagined God, in somewhat the same way as the reader of a novel throws themself into the story line to such a degree, the fictional creation can seem…
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Posted inGod

What God might say, according to Spinoza

The following post turned up in my Facebook feed yesterday. Based on my understanding of Spinoza, I have some doubts that this really reflects his perspective on God, but it might.  Regardless, I liked what Jillenne Moore shared in her post. (I'm assuming that Moore wrote it.) When Einstein gave lectures at U.S. universities, the question students asked him most was: Do you believe in God? And he always answered: I believe in the God of Spinoza. Baruch de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher considered one of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, along with Descartes. According to Spinoza,…
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Posted inCoronavirus God

Pastor’s death shows that COVID-19 is larger than God

The evidence is in: the coronavirus, or COVID-19, is larger than God. Bishop Gerald Glenn, a pastor in Virginia who defied a social distancing warning, now is dead from an infection. Despite warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to avoid mass gatherings and maintain social distancing, Glenn said in a sermon on March 22, "I firmly believe that God is larger than this dreaded virus," and announced he was not afraid to die. Hopefully this will send a message to other people that they need to trust in science, not in irrational religious leaders. Bishop Gerald Glenn
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Posted inGod

Religious people, why do you believe in God?

This blog attracts quite a few religious people, probably because my rational, reasonable, intelligent posts appeal to their subconscious mind, given how much of their conscious awareness is filled with faith-based religious dogma. So I'd like to offer an opportunity to religious people to explain why they believe in God or some other divine entity. This includes the notion that there's such a thing as "God in human form," which is the basis of Christianity and some other forms of religion. Leave a comment with you best explanation of why you believe in a higher supernatural power. I'm curious whether…
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