Christianity died on the cross.

We are the most Christian industrialized country with more people attending church than any other industrialized country. Our prisons are overflowing, our drug problem is profound, sex offenders abound and we are in two wars for profits that are unwinable.

We spend more on our military than all other industrialized countries combined and we have a mega size industrialized military complex that Ike the general and president warned us about. We have 700 military bases around the world and fail to recognize that that is the very definition of imperialism.

We are the only industrialized nation without health insurance for all of its citizens, in fact we think it is a plus that we make mega profits from the sick and needy; after all they are only egotistical animals as another person wrote on this website today. And we are ranked last in medical care by the world health organization. Bankruptcies abound because of health care costs unheard of in other industrialized countries.

Combine a religious system of beliefs with a capitalism economic system and you have yourself a failing and imperialistic nation.

Christianity died on the cross.

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I don’t know what you mean by “Christianity died on the cross.” It seems very alive and well to me.

Do you mean “true Christianity”—Christianity the way it should be, at least to you?

It sounds like you need to move to another country if you haven’t already. Your hatred of this one is palpable. And, everything you pointed out is due to having a largely religious population combined with a sense of entitlement. We have lost the ideas our founding fathers put forth. Those ideas are what would make for a great nation. Somehow those ideas have been hijacked by the CHRISTIAN nutcases who want their god everywhere—in the courthouse, in the public schools, in the military, etc. etc.

Christianity died on the cross? Not by a long shot.

Oh, and I’m not saying that you should move to another country because you shouldn’t be allowed to point out the bad stuff, only that I’ve read other stuff you’ve written and your hatred seems to be a theme. I’m just suggesting this for your happiness. You’d feel better living in a country without so many problems…if you can find one.

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The very name “majority of one” may reveal more about your persona than maybe even you realize.  Am I reading this right because it appears very egotistical to think of ourselves as a majority of one in a republic?

If my comments come across as hatred then I need to work on that aspect of my writing and life. Pointing out the “bad stuff” is not my idea of hatred but maybe to others it is. Nationalism and patriotism can overwhelm the rational mind and if anyone points out the problems with the arrogance that goes along with huge levels of nationalism and patriotism I suppose that person writing about such problems would be accused of hating his or her country.

Now the good news if greed and arrogance become a part of a nation’s persona then the universe or cosmic consciousness or the cause and effect relationship of phenomena or as the atheists state the hard problem that country begins a phase of self-destruction. Not as punishment as the religious believe but as cause and effect outcomes. We are in the stage of self destruction now but our politicians tell us is a severe recession. They are not about to tell us we are in decline of wealth. After all there is always hope.

All great countries have risen and fallen; we are no exception. And all these “great” countries refused to believe they were in a decline as their country went through its decline. This is the rise and fall of nations, which history reveals to us.

Study history for evidence of this self-destruction by countries that practiced imperialism, greed, and focused on the material aspect of life and not the higher meaning to life beyond egotistical animals. This higher meaning to life will be next to impossible for a materialist to comprehend.  We did kill over one million Vietnamese in that other illegal war. There are consequences for our ignorance or unawareness and our failure to learn from experiences. One of those consequences is we are in two unwinable wars now draining the wealth of a nation.

Now I heard a lot during the Vietnam War when protestors were told love American or leave it. You have succumbed to this same mode of expression accusing anyone that does not agree with you to leave the country. After all if they point out some problems or faults with a county they must hate their country. This patriotism and nationalism mentality will only want those that share their beliefs to live in this country. Like attracts like and we want others to think like us. It is universal this phenomenon of wanting those around us to have the same beliefs as our own.

I suspect you would accuse the ladies in pink protesting the Iraq war of hatred for their country and they may be the truest of patriots. Or not.

Now as far as a sense of entitlement not sure what you meant by that; if you mean you think Americans have a sense of entitlement because they don’t believe health care is considered a privilege rather than a right as a citizen of that country that is an interesting comment. We are the only industrialized country without some form of universal health care for all of its citizens and we are ranked last. I believe there is a causal correlation between these two realities.

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The arrest of Philip Garrido, the alleged kidnapper from Pittsburg, has led to 190,000 visits to his Google Blog “Voices Revealed.” While reporters are pouring over his misspelled rants and declarations, I find it curious that so many individuals have decided to leave comments on his postings, some of which are quite amusing. Understandably people are very disturbed by the lengths to which Mr. Garrido has now successfully tried to make his voice heard. What is ironic is that the comments are heavily peppered with homophobic insults and religious banter which seems to be on some level, very in line with Mr. Garrido’s own philosophy and views on God.

Whether Mr. Garrido attempts to mount, or is successful with using an insanity defense is yet to be seen, but there is another element to this story which is worth noting and that concerns the value of “content.” Such as with intentionally misleading websites run by racists to dishonor our civil rights leaders, Mr. Garrido’s blog raises the same freedom of speech issues we are beginning to grapple with as a society. Here we have an obviously mentally unstable psychopath who feels “comfortable” and is almost flagrantly using the internet to communicate with Law Enforcement.

It has been three days now since Mr. Garrido has been apprehended and Google still feels it’s appropriate to leave his blog up.  Consider this scenario playing out before the Internet, say twenty years ago: Mr. Garrido, in love with his own words and fanatic about his own personal Jesus, decides he’s going to tell the world all about his inventions and worldview. So, he goes home, writes down his ideas and then makes a thousand photocopies. Then, with his wife, he casually strolls the streets of Antioch, Berkeley and Pittsburg stapling the evidence of his insanity everywhere from telephone polls to bulletin boards at the local community college. Then suddenly Mr. Garrido is arrested for kidnapping. What becomes of the documents he worked so hard to distribute in a public forum, such as the following post from June 2nd of this year: 

Attorney, University, & Law Enforcement Copy This presentation contains six signed & notarized Declarations verifying there is new evidence concerning Schizophrenia that will affect the courts, the medical field and our institutions of higher learning worldwide. IN AUGUST OF 2008 AT U. C. BERKELEY’S FREE SPEECH PARK I PUBLICLY DISCLOSED NEW INFORMATION CONCERNING THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENTS AND PROVIDED A LIVE DEMONSTRATION.  THE LECTURE WAS DESIGNED TO RAISE THE AWARENESS OF THE GENERAL PUBLIC IN ORDER TO PREPARE A PLATFORM CAPABLE OF DISTRIBUTING A KNOWLEDGEABLE AWARENESS THAT WILL IN TIME PROVIDE A FOUNDATION POWERFUL ENOUGH TO UNDERMINE THE IGNORANCE THAT PREVAILS CONCERNING VOICES AND BEGIN SAVING LIVES.

What would have happened twenty years ago, when Mr. Garrido was released for his first kidnapping conviction, is that law enforcement officials and authorities would remove his typed or scribbled rants immediately and nobody would have been the wiser. The question is, by allowing Mr. Garrido’s blog to remain active this long, is Google unsure as to how to proceed legally? Have they been advised by their in house counsel that by removing Mr. Garrido’s blog they might be stepping on his First Amendment rights? It’s very puzzling because aside from the fact that “Voices Revealed” allows for potential insight into the mind of a kidnapper and perhaps a serial killer, what value is this information actually serving?

Wikipedia recently announced that it will be tightening control over some of it’s more important content, but does not admit the move is motivated by complaints of bias and inaccuracy. Well the fact remains that the internet is free, and with only a few notable exceptions it is still an unstructured mess of misinformation, the importance of which is ultimately and arbitrarily determined to some extent by a “logarithm.”  I find it laughable that Google has no issues cooperating with China to deliver content there according to the rule of the Communist CIO, and in the States has apparently no policy or standards when it comes to governing their own user generated content, other than a legal opinion.

I cite Mr. Garrido’s blog, but have decided not to reveal the link on purpose, which can undoubtedly be found with a simple Google search. The reason it is omitted is to make the point that we cannot leave it up to corporations to act with a sense of decency, and more importantly, we cannot allow the government to impose rules on a private enterprise like Google. In order to raise the level of discourse, we as individuals must recapture the virtues of responsibility and resist the urge to engage in sensationalizing every piece of information out there and cataloging or “tagging” it.  Portions of Mr. Garrido’s blog will be cut and pasted into thousands of other blogs, linked-to, twittered and wiki’d until the information about this sick man is as twisted and wrong as what he did to that young girl.

Aside from the blog’s role as evidence in the prosecution of Mr. Garrido, which may technically be the reason it’s still up, there is no value in this information becoming a part of the library of information we all share.  As leading innovators of software and hardware I stand in awe of the tremendous accomplishments of Google. I have a deep respect and admiration for what they have been able to accomplish. However, from an ethical standpoint, and an information management perspective, the very existence Mr. Garrido’s blog is a clear indicator that the content controlled by a Search Engine cannot be accepted as a legitimate educational resource.

I suppose it seems somewhat hypocritical that I can write here and take a shot at the First Amendment, but I don’t believe in restrictions on Free Speech, I believe in the responsibility of the individual to demand a more academic treatment of content distribution by everyone. We owe it to ourselves as intelligent beings to feel confident in rejecting the incoherent rantings of a madman and the idea that such nonsense deserves preservation and the resources needed for curating such gibberish.  See the full post at http://wakebook.ning.com/

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researcher, I may have confused you with someone else. I don’t think criticism of the country per se is bad. It is very American. It just seemed counter productive in this case.

Majority of one comes from Henry D. Thoreau (loosely). It refers only to my atheism growing up as a child in Arkansas. I was always told I was wrong, I was going to hell, I was stupid, etc. etc. because I didn’t believe like EVERYONE else. There may have been other closet non-believers but they weren’t as brave (or stupid?) as me. It is just my way of asserting what little control I have in my neighborhood of nutcases. I believe I’m right about there not being a god…if I didn’t, I’d change my mind and start going to church.

So, yes, you’re correct in musing that my choice of handles may say a lot about my true persona. In this great country of ours I have the right to believe, think, and say whatever I want (and so do you). I wasn’t trying to censor you so much as make you aware of how you’re coming across.

I think my reaction (overation?) to what you wrote comes from having to deal with a couple of Canadian and British co-workers that while working in this country, partaking of their big American paychecks, find every opportunity they can to put this country down and point out all the ways this country sucks and of course why it is better in canada or the UK. It gets really old. “Go back to where life is better then,” is what I want to say to them, but I don’t because I have been told by my boss that I have to be “culturally sensitive.”

Anway, just my $0.02 worth.

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“I wasn’t trying to censor you so much as make you aware of how you’re coming across.”

I agree with you I know my writing style comes across that way. As I have learned in life it is not so much what you say but how you say it.  Dialog is good it just does not accomplish anything when people resort to name-calling.

We all have our “truths” and some are more truth than others. I just enjoy the dialog as it challenges my mind. I have spent a lifetime thinking about these mysteries of life and doing intensive research and study these last 19 years.

Now just because a person has spent a life thinking about something and even doing research for 20 years is no proof that what they are writing and saying are any closer to truth than others who have not thought deeply about life.

I know preachers that spend their whole life about life and study Christian books and Christian writings and still think that the only people going to their heaven are those that think like them. I find this fascinating about the human mind. I think the damage done to young minds with a heaven or eternal hell scenario cannot be measured.

Now my point on this blog one must step away from calling themselves an atheist or a Christian and study everything they can get their hands on and don’t assume that we know what is valid and what is invalid. Try to go in as a blank slate as much as possible. I have made discoveries I had no idea was out there that few people in the world know about.

I see as much resistance from atheists as I do from Christians when new and different material and information is presented to them. The atheists say they want evidence so this video talks about a very popular atheist that refused to even consider evidence. Listen carefully as it is the TV show at the end not the person presenting the paranormal evidence that is stating the atheist refused to listen to the other person’s evidence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCeaO-b89Ak&eurl=http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/&feature=player_embedded#t=134

Atheism is a system of beliefs as is Christianity. Few very few if any atheists understand that reality. Most don’t even admit they have beliefs. How weird is that. I suspect your childhood had a lot to do with your atheism. Lucky for me I was not exposed to too much religion. Some, but it did not make sense to me even as a child. At least religion did not make sense. There is more to this universe than meets the eye or the five senses but one must seek outside the proverbial box to find it.

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Thank you for the reply.

I can’t disagree more with you about atheist being a system of beliefs. Everything else I believe is my system of beliefs. I do not, however, have a belief in a supernatural, creator god. Therefore I call myself an atheist. I don’t mean anything else by it. I still hold some weird beliefs about other things and I’ll admit that. I chalk them up to culture, stubborness, thinking I’m right, etc. but they don’t have anything to do with god.

And, I don’t think you can point to an atheist who rejects someone’s “evidence” as showing we’re like Christians. I’m always willing to listen to someone’s “evidence” only to find that it is merely their opinion and their “feelings” and “experiences” of the Lord Jesus Christ. That isn’t “evidence” and then they get mad and call me closed minded. I’ve been called closed minded more times than you can shake a stick at.

I also don’t think my childhood “caused” my atheism. I just could never logically accept a god. It didn’t make sense to me. For a very long time I thought the other people in church were just pretending to believe because they really couldn’t be so dumb, now could they? I really did think this for a very long time. It took my bringing up my disbelief when I started getting older, and then having to deal with the consequences that I began to understand that people really do believe what they’re being told in church.

My mother eventualy rejected theism after divorcing my dad, going back to school, all the way to a PhD. She began to see the logical inconsistencies as well. It wasn’t “evidence” that convinced her, so much so as the lack thereof.

If atheist is a system of beliefs, I’d really like for you to list those beliefs out for me because I obviously am in need of some instruction on this. I really am an open minded individual. I cite as proof of this that I didn’t turn out exactly the way everyone of my brothers and sisters did. They are all extremely religious. They also no longer speak to me. It is sad. I’m their flesh and blood but because I can’t make myself have their belief system, they disdain me. You’d think that’d motivate me to believe in god to please them, to stay in their good graces. No. It just makes me sad for them and in the long run for myself as well. What we lose for wanting everyone to believe in the same fairy tale is truly staggering.

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Your beliefs are that there is no god. Taking a stance against one side clearly means you believe the other and those, therefore, are your beliefs. I understand what researcher is saying when he/she says “Atheism is a system of beliefs as is Christianity”. Atheists can be just as ignorant and intolerant of ideologies as their religious counterparts are of them. I know because I was becoming one of them. I’ve always seen myself as having a pretty open mind but when I found myself having conversations with those that have their beliefs firmly planted in a religious system I would get really frustrated and angry, as would they, because we both thought we were right. The ego in us doesn’t want us seeing ourselves for what we are. I began to realize that anger, resentment and intolerance for other is NEVER right. We need to look deeper into ourselves and other’s points of view to try to see the core at which we are all coming from. I have a feeling we are coming from the same place we just don’t realize it. It is our responsability individually to do so. I think we fail a lot in communication. Words can easily be misinterpreted, jumbled or just plain the wrong ones to be used. Open diaologue is hard to have without two egos going at it with boxing gloves. Maybe one day.

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Atheism is one belief. One. Not a system of beliefs or a dogma like Christianity. I also don’t know I’m right, it is just my belief. I could be wrong. You and researcher are both making a huge assumption about me because of one word. That is the emotional hot button I dislike and am continuing to react to. Do I need to list all the things christians believe in to show the difference?

Also, researcher’s comment on my defense of Dawkins is another tired missive. I don’t worship Richard. He is not my “ultimate authority.” I do not have one. I do agree about Buddhism. I have studied this “belief system” and have learned a great deal that I have since incorporated into my life.

I am open to evidence of telepathy. I am open to evidence of God. Sir David Attenborough, on a video posted to RD’s website had a comment about termites. David said that he was wondering about in a field, turned over a log and saw all these blind termites continuing to go about their business totally unaware that he was there. He has a feeling that us humans may be like that in relation to god. I told this quote to all my religious friends who then of course thought that I’d finally gotten it (religion) but I assured them it was just something that made me think. I also recently read a Phillip K Dick novel called VALIS that had a similar effect on me.

I am open. So, when you dismiss me by telling me that my ego can’t handle being wrong, I dismiss you by thinking you’re the ego maniac that can’t stand atheists because we don’t think/believe/behave the way you want us to.

Really. Am I missing something here? Maybe it is sheer ego to not like to be catagorized and shoved into a box because of one word I use as a label so people will know where I stand on one subject and one subject alone: god.

To SoSimple: I began to realize that anger, resentment and intolerance for other is NEVER right.”

I agree. I don’t know if this was directed at me but if it was, I can only apologize if I’ve come across as angry or resentful. I may have gotten a bit huffy for the reasons I’ve explained above, so again “my bad.” However, I am not an intolerant person. I’ve searched my “soul” to make sure I’m not just deluding myself, but I can tell you in the most honesty I can humanly summon: you have the right to say whatever you want to say, just please, don’t ask me to look in a mirror, look deeper into myself, etc. without first doing so yourself. This is what is coming across as pedantic. I don’t have any boxing gloves on and I am not trying to play word games that miss your point. I’m only trying to have this “open dialogue” so that maybe you and/or researcher will understand atheists can’t be so easily dismissed with the same old tired arguments.

Anyway, enjoying this discussion with you folks but gotta run.

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David Attenborough, One of the greatest men of knowledge, and atheist.

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From my point of view atheism is a system of beliefs for most atheists but not all. There are always exceptions. And I think I fail to point this out in my comments. I will try to do better with this aspect of my comments.

There are always exceptions due to the variation that exists in everything in a relative phenomenal world. Phenomena being a synonym for occurrences. Those atheists system of beliefs are grounded in materialism. We cannot be an atheist and not have beliefs; we cannot be human and not have beliefs or paradigms. We could not make it through the day without beliefs or paradigms.

It gets down to degree or level of our beliefs. One can be a fundamentalist with their beliefs whether it is with the bible or materialism. The phrase “I don’t know” probably is the one of the most valid statements we can make with most phenomena at this stage of human evolution.

“Atheism is one belief. One. Not a system of beliefs or a dogma like Christianity. I also don’t know I’m right, it is just my belief. I could be wrong. You and researcher are both making a huge assumption about me because of one word”

There are always exceptions you may be one of them. My bias comes from past communication with atheists. Your comments on this most recent post suggests you are not a confirmed atheist or what I would term a fundamentalist atheist teaching atheism as fact to others.

From my point of view you did come across as referring to Dawkins as some kind of authority and his views demand much respect. Dawkins is a fundamentalist in Christian terms. Teaching atheism as fact is like the Christian’s teach Christianity as fact; while I believe that many aspects of Christianity does not pass the simplest of logic tests.

I am fascinated by the human mind how our minds can believe things as fact rather than theory or beliefs. That Jesus died for our sins does not even make good theory in my mind unless I am missing something. Which is always possible. The idea that someone has to die to save others from hell I cannot find in any of my research other than religious dogma.

It came out of paganism. So the Christians without realizing it; their religion has much to do with paganism and being a cult. And hundreds of millions of people line up every week or month to drink symbolic blood and flesh, now that is the power of beliefs and paradigms.

From my point of view atheists and Christians and indeed all of us underestimate the power of beliefs and paradigms on our thoughts and behaviors. I showed the business of paradigms in my seminars over 200 times and it was not until about the 80th showing that it really came to me the power of paradigms on our lives. I noticed most people thought they got it with one showing. It was like some kind of awaking following by sincere clarity that one cannot put into words.

I communicated with the author of the video and to my surprise he has a Christian paradigm. Go figure but that is the power of paradigms even the author of the video on paradigms and how they can influence our lives can have his own paradigms. But he does state on his video that we all have paradigms, no exceptions.

I guess my observation on most atheists is that they believe they cannot be influence by beliefs or paradigms. My observation has been that religious dogma creates most atheists. And some like Hitchens become even hostile atheists. At least he appears to me that way on TV.

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“David Attenborough, One of the greatest men of knowledge, and atheist.”

“In a December 2005 interview with Simon Mayo on BBC Radio Five Live, Attenborough stated that he considers himself an agnostic”

I have found it is always best to do one’s own research rather than rely on others statements if possible. This is an example of this as Attenborough considers himself agnostic. Now the definition of agnositc is as follows:

“Agnosticism (Greek: α- a-, without + γνώσις gnōsis, knowledge; after Gnosticism) is the philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims — particularly metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of deities, spiritual beings, or even ultimate reality — is unknown or, depending on the form of agnosticism, inherently impossible to prove or disprove and hence unknowable”

I disagree that all metaphysical claims are unknowable. There is an evolution of consciousness in the world and indeed the universe so what is unknowable today may not be tomorrow. So the term agnostic is in my view an invalid term. But apparantly there are different forms of agnosticism so he may have been referring to a different form. He sounds like a man of nature and deep into biology.

“He has explained that he feels the evidence all over the planet clearly shows evolution to be the best way to explain the diversity of life, and that “as far as I’m concerned, if there is a supreme being then he chose organic evolution as a way of bringing into existence the natural world.”

He mentions supreme being as a possiblity that does not sound like atheism to me.

“Also in early 2009, the BBC broadcast an Attenborough one-hour special, Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life. In reference to the programme, Attenborough stated that “People write to me that evolution is only a theory. Well, it is not a theory. Evolution is as solid a historical fact as you could conceive. Evidence from every quarter”

I disagree that evolution is as solid a historical fact as you could ever conceive. Again theories taught as facts by well meaning people. Bet there was a day that the sun revolved around the earth was considered a historical fact as you could conceive.

I just watched a tv news program and a guest was a Dan Savage a very well spoken person and lo and behold he is a former catholic and now an atheist. The catholic church should get some kind of award for its ability to create atheists.

I just noticed he is openly gay. To religions enternal shame they know not from which they speak to try and condemn gays as sinners is a profound error and self righteous all to itself. This may explain why he decided to become an atheist.

All errors and self righteousness and sin has its home in ignorance. Even buddha’s attachment, grasping, and craving have their home in ignorance or unawareness. And ignorance has its home in ……………..

From my point of view there are more choices in the world than religious, agnostic, or atheist.

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