Church of the Churchless

Some defenders of religion argue that religious belief is a harmless personal exercise. "What's the problem with people believing whatever they want? How does this hurt anyone?" Well, read Nebraska Senate Nominee Says Religious Beliefs Can Justify Breaking Any Law. This article presents excellent reasons why elevating unsubstantiated, nonfactual religious beliefs over other sorts of unsubstantiated, nonfactual personal beliefs is dangerous. Sasse, however, apparently believes that this law does not go far enough, even if the Court gives Hobby Lobby everything it is asking for. His proposed rule — that government cannot require someone to act counter to their religious…

Here's my report concerning news of all things godly during the past week. Based on my reading of two daily newspapers, TIME, New Scientist, The New Yorker, online New York Times, and many perusals of blogs, web sites, and other Internet offerings... Nothing.  A lot has been happening in material reality. Nothing seems to be going on in supernatural reality. No miracles. No appearances by God. No divine revelations. No anything. Zilch. It's been this way every week for as long as I can remember. Which is the vast majority of my 65 years of living. Same old, same old. …

That's a great word, apatheism. I hadn't come across it until I read a recent New Scientist article, "Losing Our Religion." (On the magazine's web site it is called "God not-botherers: Religious apathy reigns.") Of course, New Scientist is a British publication. The article says, "The UK is one of the least religious countries in the world, with around half of the population saying they don't belong to any religion."  However, there is good news for my country, which is a lot more religious. Even in the US -- a deeply Christian country -- the number of people expressing "no…

Today the United States Supreme Court said it was just fine to have prayers from a "chaplain of the month" open a town's public meetings.  Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority in a 5-to-4 decision that divided the court’s more conservative members from its liberal ones, said the prayers were merely ceremonial. They were neither unduly sectarian nor likely to make members of other faiths feel unwelcome. “Ceremonial prayer,” he wrote, “is but a recognition that, since this nation was founded and until the present day, many Americans deem that their own existence must be understood by precepts…

It's crazy to believe in a world that doesn't exist. This is what many mentally ill people suffer from: a mistaken belief that what their dysfunctional minds tell them is true, really is.  Today I heard on the radio that a pastor presiding over a service in the town where the Fort Hood shootings took place said "the devil is the author of what happened."  Whatever made Ivan Lopez kill three soldiers before he killed himself almost certainly was not the devil. (I added the "almost" to show my scientific credentials, since absolute certainty isn't a hallmark of the scientific…