Rex Chimes In

Rex makes his responses to the Gardener article. These responses are so ideologically typical. I don't mean to single Rex out by he did add a comment so this is my answer:

You still have no proof that god exists.

Which is irrelevant because it has nothing to with Jesus existing as a man in history. It's also absurd to make that an issue since God can't be the object of empirical investigation.

Evidently, you have a bunch of "scowlers" who share your delusions, but arguing over 1500 year old hearsay, is not evidence, or truth, or anything new.

another ignorance display. What's heretical about it? Why would being old make it wrong. Why does truth change over time?

Tell me that god appeared to the UN, and that, during his speech, he created a new continent in the Pacific, and that we have a new moon in orbit around Earth, and he moved a couple of interesting stars close enough to us so that we could study them better, then I will believe in your god. Until then, I will continue to think that you suffer from the same delusions of your ancestors.

what planet does this guy live on? Why are atheist like this? He apprentice thinks that if God exists he's suppose to do earth shattering things no one could deny. Why is it so hard for the fathom the concept that we are supposes to search for truth and not supposed to be something we can't deny why is that so hard to understand? Apparently these hate group types are short on imagination and want everything to be tucked away neatly with no ambiguity. Strange attitude for "free thinkers."

I understand that you choose to believe in the tooth fairy, but I don't.

obviously an attitude of hate. he can't just accept that some people believe things he doesn't believe. If you don't accept his belief then your belief system must be stupid and he has to run you down. What's odd is that most atheists on the net can't understand how this is response of hate but what else could it be? he's showing nothing but pure content for anyone who doesn't accept his world view. Deriding and belittling other people's understanding of the world, and why would he think that somehow I am asking him to believe what I believe? where did that "I don't," come from? That's supposed to rally prove it. "What I believe is obviously true and if you don't accept it you are an idiot."

All of your "evidence" is hearsay.

In order to know that you would have to know what my evidence is! I am betting you would rather hard pressed to tell me what one piece of my evidence is.

No matter who your "scholars" are, they are all working off of thousand year old texts, "written" by illiterates, decades after the supposed events took place.

a thousand year old text? can't you count? why would being old make it false? That's so stupid. Otherwise he's going to criticize the gospels for being written after the events but then he turns around and seems to say being older makes it less true!

If god really existed, and he wanted us to worship him correctly, he would appear to us regularly, and guide us as to how to do it correctly.

this is such typical stupidity. Such an illogical argument. If God really existed he would become a man in history and die for our sins."

"well, Jesus did that"

"are you a fool, Jesus couldn't be the son of God, he didn't exist, you can't prove Existed and he lived a long time ago."

how about this one, "you can't prove Jesus was the son of God"

"how do you know that?"

"because he lived a long time ago"

what's with this tendency to second guess what God would do. "If God existed he wasn't give me a test he would show me up front, so therefore, this can't be a test so I refuse to believe."

it's such circular reasoning!

His lack of appearances that can be verified objectively, speak to the fact that either he doesn't care about us, or more likely, he doesn't exist.

see what I mean? Jesus could be verified objectively?" why would God have to be verified objectively? what if he wants you to have faith? "O he can't do that that would mean I have to actually make a commitment to a faith concept."

I have not turned every stone in the universe, so I cannot say that I know for sure. If you say that you know for sure, you are engaging in the most pernicious form of wishful thinking, and outright lying, in the history of mankind, and deep down, you know it. That knowledge, and the knowledge of your mortality drive you to defend your fairy tale at the top of your lungs!

how do you prove anyone is lying? Since you admit you don't if God exists or not why don't you try to think about the evidence that I do give. try to read some books get some intellectual background (lost cause I know) so you understand the arguments, so you at least wont dismissing them out of hand. the typical atheist dismissing God argument because they are about God, regardless of weather they prove anything or not.

I am sorry for you that you can't accept that we will not ever truly have all of the answers in our lifetimes, but to claim to have them all is intellectually bankrupt.

But I do have the answers i need. why should I discord what works for me? why should I give up something to satisfy your anger when ti's gotten me total joy and vast sense of happiness and life transformation?

The time has come to draw back the curtain that covers the sham that religion has been since the dawn of Man, and allow Humans to step into the light of the truth without the tooth fairy.

you mean you would actually be willing to read a books and learn some logic and try generate an IQ point or two worth of thought about God arguemnts? I will be happy to walk you through some God arguments if you are willing to shed your ignorant hateful little act and actually try to think about it? how about it?

We don't have all of the answers, but that is the point, we seek them, and we know that the ones that are from antiquity ring false. Geocentrism, anyone?

you seek answers unless they lead toward belief in God, which you don't want becuase he wont let you screw or be gay so you just wont think about it right? The gencentrism crack but your stupid little head where your cake hole is ok? you have zero learning in terms of religious thinkers. until you actually read a page or two of modern theology you have no right to say such things. stop being an idiot and learn something.

how do I define "idiot?" Not as someone can't learn. I'm sure you could if you would stop throwing your little tantrum and actually educate yourself. But you are so busy trying force God do things your way that you can't think logically. If you want ot learn to think like a real thinker I'll teach you. I'm sure you have the generic ability. I'm just being honest.

I don't' hate you like you hate me. But I'm not going to try and place your childish little anger. if you can't honesty and truth then fuck you. you don't have the right to say these insulting idiotic things. you are a brain washed lackey of a hate group.

Beware of anyone who claims to have all of the answers, because he is playing on your fears to manipulate you. It is after all, the oldest human trick in the book.

you claim to have all the answers. you claim to know what I feel and what I know and what I think. Truth is you don't know spit about Christianity. you maybe have gone to chruch but I bet you slept through every service. you have clearly not a read any books on modern theology.

Answering Jim Gardener's Jesus Myth Arguemnts

Jim Gardener of the "How good was that" blog wants to discuss the Jesus myth thing after claiming that I posted something on this blog in the wrong place. It turns out that issue was simple confusion with the structure of his blog. Now he makes overtures to discuss other topics, so let's do it. He claims he wants to expand the Jesus myth discussion.

Frankly I don't see anything other than old hat:

Gardener

The purpose of this post is to expand the on-going debate from an older blog posting, in which many constructive ideas and explanations were bounced around as to the historical verisimilitude of the Jesus story.

Armchair theologians are fond of recalling nuggets of received opinion that stand as unqualified proof that the Jesus of the new testament was a living, breathing single individual who really did perform miracles and preside over a ministry as not only detailed in scripture, but in the narrative of ancient historians such as Josephus.

This guy writes with a bouncy community college creative writing class style. NO matter. Why characterize "arm chair theologians?" why not quote real ones and get to the point?


Gardener

These third party sources are widely sighted as corroborative proof that Jesus and the Nazarene, as a distinct organised group violently opposed to Roman rule, to which Jesus belonged, were known to and written about by independently reliable sources of information vouchsafed by references made in their extended works to other figures from antiquity, such as various Roman Caesars.

They are good corroborative sources, and there are many of them.

from Doxa (my website):

* Thallus (c. 50-75AD)

*Phlegon (First century)

* Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews, c.93)

* Tacitus (Annals, c.115-120)

* Suetonius (Lives of the Caesars, c. 125)

* Galen (various writings, c.150)

* Celsus (True Discourse, c.170).


* Mara Bar Serapion (pre-200?)

* Talmudic References( written after 300 CE, but some refs probably go back to eyewitnesses)

*Lucian (Second century)

*Numenius (Second cent.)

*Galerius (Second Cent.)



Gardener:

To that end, commentary from Nick, in what I have to say is one of the most succinct explanations of why these historical reference points are not to be considered as the hard evidence of Jesus’ existence as they are often said to be, asserted the following:

They are not direct evidence, that's why the are called "corroborative." But here we see one of the major distorting tricks of the Dawkie arsenal. He's quoting a guy from a message board. Why not deal with real scholars? I can find a thousand guys on message boards who have decent knowledge but ultimately no expertise.



Gardener:

Most of the scholarly works on the Testimonium Flavianum agree that it is either partly inauthentic or wholly inauthentic.

Yea, that's another use of this distorting trick. She's speaking in a half truth and that makes it sound like the majority of scholars believe Jo didn't write about Jesus. that is exactly the opposite of he facts. while it's true that scholars either believe he did or the didn't and if you lump them together you can say they believe either it's fake in part or in whole. That's true. That does not mean, however, that the majority don't believe that Josephus really talked about Jesus. The majority do believe that he did! This the experts now, those who spend their lives studying the material. It's not an appeal to popularity bu to experts.

from Doxa:

As to the major passage, the "TF," Most scholars agree that it at least has a core of authenticity, but has been reworked. Thus most scholars agree that Jospheus does at least mention someone named Jesus of Nazerath who probably give rise to the Christian movment. According to Louis H. Feldman in "The Testimonium Flavianum: The State of the Question" in Christological Perspectives, Robert F. Berkey and Sarah A. Edwards (New York: Pilgrim, 1982) there are liberal scholars who leave the entire passage intact! (e.g. A.M. Dubarle, the French scholar). Feldman's count: 4 scholars regard as completely genuine, 6 mostly genuine; 20 accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several interpolations; 13 regard it as being totally an interpolation.[ Feldman, Louis H. Josephus and Modern Scholarship. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1984. P. 684-91]

A List of Scholar who accept at least some core passage.

John P. Meier
Raymond Brown
Graham Stanton
N.T. Wright
Paula Fredrickson
John D. Crossan
E.P. Sanders
Geza Vermes
Louis Feldman
John Thackeray
Andre Pelletier
Paul Winter
A. Dubarle
Ernst Bammel
Otto Betz
Paul Mier
Ben Witherington
F.F. Bruce
Luke T. Johnson
Craig Blomberg
J. Carleton Paget
Alice Whealey
J. Spencer Kennard
R. Eisler
R.T. France
Gary Habermas
Robert Van Voorst
Shlomo Pines
Edwin M. Yamuchi
James Tabor
John O'Connor-Murphy
Mark Goodacre
Paula Frederiksen
David Flusser
Steve Mason


Alice Whealy, Berkely Cal.

The TF controversy from antiquity to present

Twentieth century controversy over the Testimonium Flavianum can be distinguished from controversy over the text in the early modern period insofar as it seems generally more academic and less sectarian. While the challenge to the authenticity of the Testimonium in the early modern period was orchestrated almost entirely by Protestant scholars and while in the same period Jews outside the church uniformly denounced the text's authenticity, the twentieth century controversies over the text have been marked by the presence of Jewish scholars for the first time as prominent participants on both sides of the question. In general, the attitudes of Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish and secular scholars towards the text have drawn closer together, with a greater tendency among scholars of all religious backgrounds to see the text as largely authentic. On the one hand this can be interpreted as the result of an increasing trend towards secularism, which is usually seen as product of modernity. On the other hand it can be interpreted as a sort of post-modern disillusionment with the verities of modern skepticism, and an attempt to recapture the sensibility of the ancient world, when it apparently was still possible for a first-century Jew to have written a text as favorable towards Jesus of Nazareth as the Testimonium Flavianum.

According to Lois Feldman author of Josephus and Modern Scholarship "the vast majority of scholars (75 %) favor partial authenticity of the Testimonium."



Ancient Evidence for Jesus from Non-Christian Sources

Michael Gleghorn

"Did Josephus really write this? Most scholars think the core of the passage originated with Josephus, but that it was later altered by a Christian editor, possibly between the third and fourth century A.D."


(these next few quotes about scholar's views contributed by researcher Nehemias 8/18/2008 02:16:00 PM)

Prof. Mark Goodacre, Duke University:
"Josephus' text has, of course, been interpolated by Christians, but most scholars think that there is at its base a passage written by Josephus: NB style, context & non-Christian elements that survive".

Prof. Paula Frederiksen, Boston University:
"Most scholars currently incline to see the passage as basically authentic, with a few later insertions by Christian scribes." (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, page 249).
Prof. David Flusser, Hebraica University:

"Although it is generally recognized that the passage concerning Jesus in the extant greek manuscripts of his Jewish Antiquities (18:63-64) was distorted by later christian hands "the most probable view seems to be that our text represents substantially what Josephus wrote, but that some alterations have been made by a christian interpolator" (The Sage from Galilee - Rediscovering Jesus' Genius, page 12)

The leading Josephus Scholar, Steve Mason discusses the two references to Jesus in Josephus' writings in his book "Josephus and the New Testament":

about scholarship consensus:

"Taking all of these problems into consideration, a few scholars have argued that the entire passage (the testimonium) as it stands in Josephus is a Christian forgery. The Christian scribes who copied the Jewish historian's writings thought it intolerable that he should have said nothing about Jesus and spliced the paragraph in where it might logically have stood, in Josephus' account of Pilate's tenure. (...) Most critics, however, have been reluctant to go so far." (page 170-171)Mbr>

Josephus'Testimony to Jesus: by Dr. James D. Tabor

Testimonium Flavianum)
Josephus, Antiquities
18. 63-64




As we see from the quotes above it is quite a distortion to try and say that the majority of scholars don't bellicose that Jo spoke of Jesus, they do. The majority believe that the reading is "tweaked" but not fabricated wholly. That means they majority do not believe it's made up completely. That is to say they believe Josephus knew of Jesus' existence. It's utterly deceptive to try and combine those who buy the tweak theory with the few who believe it's all made up and pretend that the majority believe as the latter.

This is not the end of Gardener's dishonest approach. He also wants us to think that because Origin didn't speak of the TF then there's not textual basis for it prior to Eusebius.

Origen was clearly familiar with the Antiquities, and writes about a far less significant brief possible allusion to Jesus via James, and yet he not only makes no mention of the Testimonium passage, he further characterizes Josephus as not believing in Jesus the Christ–totally inconsistent with the transcriptions of the Testimonium we now have. Indeed, we don’t have any reference at all to the Testimonium passage from any of the early church fathers until Eusebius, writing about three centuries after the supposed time of Jesus.

Many atheists try to imply that Eusebius forged it but Gardener doesn't go that far. His assertions are unfounded however. We do have indications that the passage was known before Eusebius.


the following is a section form Doxa that I worte and researched:

Steve Mason discusses the two references to Jesus in Josephus' writings in his book "Josephus and the New Testament":

alternate versions (Agapius, Pseudo-Hegesipus, Michael the Syrian):

"Finally, the existence of alternative versions of the testimonium has encouraged many scholars to think that Josephus must have written something close to what we find in them, which was later edited by Christian hands. if the laudatory version in Eusebius and our text of Josephus were the free creation of Christian scribes, who then created the more restrained versions found in Jerome, Agapius, and Michael?" (page 172)

And:
"Nevertheless, since most of those who know the evidence agree that he said something about Jesus, one is probably entitled to cite him as independent evidence that Jesus actually lived, if such evidence were needed. (page 174 ff).

Prof. Louis Feldmann, in his book Josephus and Modern Scholarship, noted that between 1937 to 1980, of 52 scholars reviewing the subject, 39 found portions of the Testimonium Flavianum to be authentic - 10 scholars regarded the Testimonium Flavianum as entirely or mostly genuine, 20 accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several interpolations, and 13 regard it as being totally an interpolation. (See Christopher Price, A Thorough Review of the Testimonium Flavianum; Peter Kirby, Testimonium Flavianum)

So, according Feldman, the vast majority of scholars (75 %) favor partial authenticity of the Testimonium. Some scholars who accepts that Josephus wrote something about Jesus: Lane Fox, Michael Grant, Crossan, Borg, Meier, Tabor, Thiessen, Frederiksen, Flusser, Charlesworth, Paul Winter, Feldman, Mason...

far from Gardener's implication that the majority don't believe Jo wrote any of it, the truth is a huge majority believe he did and online small parts are "tweaked."

Finally, many commentators who regards TF as entirely interpolation, do accept smaller passage (eg. Per Bilde, Hans Colzelmann).

(Mason, Feldman, Colzelmann quotes contributed by researcher Nehemias CADRE blog 8/18/2008 02:16:00 PM)


a) Jerome's Reading.

St. Jerome quoted from the TF as saying "he was believed to bethe Messiah," rather than "he was the Messiah." This has led many scholars to believe that Jerome knew of another, perhaps older version of the TF that read differently and lacked the "tweeked" parts of the passage.

That tells us there was a earlier reading than the one we know.

b)The Arabic Text.

A Jewish scholar named Sholmo Poines foudn an Arabic Text that reads differently then does the recieved version of the TF.

Josephus'Testimony to Jesus
James D. Tabor
(Testimonium Flavianum) Josephus, Antiquities 18. 63-64

Tabor:

"Professor Shlomo Pines found a different version of Josephus testimony in an Arabic version of the tenth century. It has obviously not been interpolated in the same way as the Christian version circulating in the West:"

"At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders."

c) Syriac text.

Alice Whealy, Berkely Cal.

The TF controversy from antiquity to present

In the second major twentieth century controversy over the authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum, the erudite Near Eastern studies scholar, Shlomo Pines, tried to argue that the paraphrase of the Testimonium that appears in a Christian Arabic chronicle dating from the tenth century might be more authentic than the textus receptus Testimonium. 21 Reaction to Pines' thesis was mixed, but the most important piece of evidence that Pines' scholarship on Christian Semitic sources brought to light was not the Arabic paraphrase of the Testimonium that he proposed was more authentic than the textus receptus, but the literal Syriac translation of the Testimonium that is quoted in a twelfth century chronicle compiled by the Syrian Patriarch of Antioch (1166-1199). 22 It is this version of the Testimonium, not the Arabic paraphrase of it, that has the greatest likelihood of being, at least in some ways, more authentic than the textus receptus Testimonium because, as noted earlier, this version of the text agrees with Jerome's Latin version of the text in the same crucial regard. The medieval Syriac Testimonium that Pines uncovered is very strong evidence for what many scholars had argued since birth of the controversy over the text in the Renaissance, namely that Jerome did not alter the Testimonium Flavianum to read "he was believed to be the Christ" but rather that he in fact knew the original version of the Testimonium, which he probably found in Eusebius' Historia Ecclesiastica , which read "he was believed to be the Christ" rather than "he was the Christ."

(2) No Textaul evidence

No textual evidence supports the charge that Origin or Eusbius made up the passage.

a) All copies we have contain the quote.

If it had been forged we should have some copies that don't contian it.

New Advent Encyplopidia:

"all codices or manuscripts of Josephus's work contain the text in question; to maintain the spuriousness of the text, we must suppose that all the copies of Josephus were in the hands of Christians, and were changed in the same way."



b) Passage known prior to Eusebius

Nor is it ture that our first indication of the existence of the Passage begins with Eusebuis:

Again, the same conclusion follows from the fact that Origen knew a Josephan text about Jesus, but was not acquainted with our present reading; for, according to the great Alexandrian doctor, Josephus did not believe that Jesus was the Messias ("In Matth.", xiii, 55; "Contra Cels.", I, 47).



c)Silence of Early writters is explianed

Second, it is true that neither Tertullian nor St. Justin makes use of Josephus's passage concerning Jesus; but this silence is probably due to the contempt with which the contemporary Jews regarded Josephus, and to the relatively little authority he had among the Roman readers. Writers of the age of Tertullian and Justin could appeal to living witnesses of the Apostolic tradition. (Ibid)




3)Eusebius careful with sources.

Lightfoot, again:

The manner in which Eusebius deals with his very numerous quotations elsewhere, where we can test his honesty, is a sufficient vindication against this unjust charge.1Moreover, Eusebius is generally careful not only to collect the best evidence accessible, but also to distinguish between different kinds of evidence. “Almost every page witnesses to the zeal with which he collected testimonies from writers who lived at the time of the events which he describes. For the sixth and seventh books he evidently rejoices to be able to use for the foundation of his narrative the contemporary letters of Dionysius; ‘Dionysius, our great bishop of Alexandria,’ he writes, ‘will again help me by his own words in the composition of my seventh book of the history, since he relates in order the events of his own time in the letters which he has left’ (vii. praef.) . . . In accordance with this instinctive desire for original testimony, Eusebius scrupulously distinguishes facts which rest on documentary from those which rest on oral evidence. Some things he relates on the authority of a ‘general’ (iii. 11, 36) or ‘old report’ (iii. 19, 20) or from tradition (i. 7, . 9, vi. 2, &c.).



3)Admits when he can't fill in gaps

Lightfoot agin:

"In the lists of successions he is careful to notice where written records failed him. ‘I could not,’ he says, ‘ by any means find the chronology of the bishops of Jerusalem preserved in writing; thus much only I received from written sources, that there were fifteen bishops in succession up to the date of the siege under Hadrian, &c.’ (iv. 5).” [W.] “There is nothing like hearing the actual words” of the writer, he says again and again (i. 23, iii. 32, vii. 23; comp. iv. 23), when introducing a quotation."(Lightfoot,Ibid.)

If Eusebius really believed that pious fruad was acceptable, why did he bother to admit when he couldn't fill in a gap? Why didn't he just make up the information? If he made up Bishop lists on other occasions, why not this time?

4)Pious Fraud Quotation Itself a fraud

Roger Pearse, an experienced amateur scholar demonstrates that this rumor about Eusebius goes back to a quotation by Gibbon, and Eusebuis never said anything like it:

"Some very odd statements are in circulation about Eusebius Pampilus the Historian. Recently someone quoted one of them at me, as a put-down. I had the opportunity to check the statements fairly easily, and the results are interesting, if discouraging for those looking for data on the internet. Since then I have come across other variants, and added these also.

Note that the Greek text is rendered using the Scholars Press SPIonic font, free from here.

*'I have repeated whatever may rebound to the glory, and suppressed all that could tend to the disgrace of our religion'

*'It will sometimes be necessary to use falsehood for the benefit of those who need such a mode of treatment.'"

Roger goes on in a long page to disect and disprove this whole thesis, and to show that it was the 18th century historian Gibbon who said this about Eusebius, and not Eusebius himself.

Next: Page 3 THIS Argument; Josephus 3
Next argument: III.B. Tacitus

Gardener:

So 1) the authenticity of the passage is highly suspect. 2) Even if it had been authentic, it would have been written decades after the time of Jesus, based on, at best, second-hand information taken from unreferenced sources of unknown reliability. And 3) As the story goes, the creator of a vast cosmos of (at least) a hundred billion galaxies comes to our tiny speck (after a few billion years) and actually lives among us for a while. Given the limitless power at his disposal, why are we having to scratch for a pathetic few highly-suspect crumbs of transcriptions of second-hand stories written long after the fact? Does that really sound like the modus operandi of a god? If he came to this planet to reveal himself, why did he do so in a secretive way that leaves behind the exact same lack of hard evidence that we typically have for personages of myth?

Gardener's assertions are contrary to the facts. Most of his arguemnts are made up of begging the question. The evidence for the TF is overwhealming. No copy of Jo exists without the TF in it. We have version we know to be older than Eusebius. There are so many different versions and so widespread there is no reason to think a forger could have controled all the readings.

His arguments about what God would do how he thinks the universe ought to stack up is not based upon facts but merely begs the question.

one of the stupidest things about atheists

They always equate spelling with intelligence. That takes a moron to do because it has nothing to with intelligence. The first and foremost thing they zero in on, since they can't answer my arguments and they can't disprove my research is my spelling. The always assume O you can't spell that means you are stupid. No dumb fuck It means you are stupid. Most dyslexics have above average IQ, Mine is 142. My brother and I are so smart the IQ testing people when we were six couldn't believe it. They said we were geniuses and everyone in the institute wanted to talk to us because we were so bright and amazing.

Then second stupid thing they do is tell me about spell checks. I've said this about a hundred thousand times, I use fire fox. If you aer not an idiot then you know fire fox has automatic spell check in the text box. But spell check doesn't do any good if you don't see the words right. I had the smarts to gt all the way to the end of Ph.D. work with bad spelling becuase I am smarter than you and I understood how to get around my limitations. Obviously you don't understand becuase you are stuck, Rex, as a little know nothing troll who can't think and the only thing you can do when you lose an argument is say "you can't spell." that shows me that you are a total fool.

the little loser send an email "thank for my comment ahhah laughs like I'm a sucker." who got the hits from ridiculing your comments sucker?

Before making sweeping generalisations about one third of the world's population, and assuming you actually want people to read your book, you might do well to spend "years researching" punctuation and basic grammar before anything else. Just a tip, but in English sentences start with a capital letter.

Atheists are not 1/3 of the world idiot. very very very far from it. they aer 3%. that's, just 3%.t that's nothing.

On the basic thrust of your argument, I would agree that there are probably hundreds of thousands of people, out there, who identify themselves as atheist simply because they are too lazy to get out of bed on a Sunday morning, or indeed think about any of "it" for themselves.

I don't think there are that many.

But if it is your intention to prove the larger philosophical tract of a-theism, per-se, merely a lazy means of persecuting the religious, I might argue you'd have to go a long way to find a more efficient means of achieving this; absolute hatred of other people's beliefs, than religion itself.

the purpose of this blog is to demonstrate that atheism is a hate group.I have done admirably. Almost every you say shows dire hatred. Anyone with any idea of what a hate group is can see immediately that atheism is one. It's all over this work I've been doing. I've proved it over and over and over again. That's not the purpose of my overall work on the net but for this blog it is.

Stupdiity of hate groups shows itself

here's a typical comment by a Dawkie that shows how ignorant they are. This comments shows they are really ignorant of the things they criticize, they don't know what a fundamentalist is they don't know what a liberal is. Little Dawkie named "Rex" says:

I am happy to read your blog for a couple of reasons. One is that, your blog lets me see how the bible thumpers roll, and as if that isn't funny enough, I get to see just how screwed up and flawed your logic always is. Maybe you should spend more time thinking about cause and effect and less about gawd, because...... dude, you're scaring the normals!

Where's the logic? I have 300 studies that say Religion is not adddiction or mental illness and that it's better for your head tahn unbelief. What logic would take these guys hate as evidence over 300 scientific studies? But I'm the one with the bad logic. They have not one single study, their idiotic foolishness about Religion being addictive is based upon flimsy arguments such as Pot leads to Heroine kind of logic of Jack Webb in Dragnet yet I'm the one with the b ad logic. He does absolutely nothing to show how any of my logic is bad. So these uneducated hicks "logic" is just another word like "cool" and "your logic is flawed" is just more name calling like "get a life." It's just something to say in place of "boo you I don't like you."

He says he wants to see how Bible thumpers "roll" (I buy machine rolled actually) he thinks I'm a fundamentalist. Anyone with half a brain would naturally try to check out the website of someone they pick a fight with. Had he looked at my site he would see articles about why I don't believe in hell, how God is working in all religions, I don't believe in the inerrancy of the bible. Of course these ideas mean nothing to him becuase he's so uneducated and unread that he doesn't' know the difference in a liberal or a fundamentalist, he doesn't know that a bible thumper is a fundie and he doesn't know a fundie form a whole in the ground. All he knows is that it makes him feel cool and powerful to insult and put people down and to mock and ridicule things that certain people like, that makes him feel good, its' a rush (like a drug). Atheist trolling is an addiction that's why know nothings keep doing it. So the atheist movement has filtered down to the lowest common denominator where it is nothing more than trolls having fun on the net. An atheist on the rationalism blog (see post on "god hates you guy has found this") says: "I’ve been blogging on atheism for years. The number one thing that never ceases to amaze me is how easy it is to get a rise out of the religious by reading their own words back to them." Yes, isn't that the definition of troll? Doing things to get a rise?

There is no reason to take atheism seriously. It's not a major tend in human thought, it's not a cultural mover or shaker, it's just a hate group, it's a tendency of a hand of intellectuals who have no real influence because the people in their movement are too uneducated to know why they are important.

But the best part I like about reading your blog is that if you are the best thinker that the gawd team has to offer, then the infidels should be able to make short work of changing the things about society that we find offensive.

You are right about me being the best, of corse you are far too stupid and uneducated to understand anything I say. If I was Enstine you would be saying the thing. You say that to Goethe or Kant or Hume or anyone because you are so uneducated you don't even know what makes a liberal or a fundie, you know absolutely nothing about the world of thought. I'm real concerned with this guy's appraisal of my logic. This is the genius who thinks argument from sign proves causality. Look at the flimsy child stupid argument for religion being addiction; drugs addicts get angry when you call them names and so do religious people." Here's an actual "reason" why the "God hates you guy" thinks religion is addcition: "4. Drug addicts often show signs of schizophrenic and delusional behavior, including talking to themselves. How is this different to prayer?" This is so brilliant. I said in that article we have 12 studies that show that religion is not mental illness. So to link prayer to mental illness on the pretense that "they both deal with talking to people who aren't there" (Never mind the reasons why would might do this could be totally different--never mind that neither case invovles actually knowing "no one is there") they have no data and no studies to back up that that's all prayer is, or to link belief to mental illness, 12 studies disprove t no study backs it up. Yet despite this total durth of evidence he is still staunchly convinced that that's what's going on.The logic he displays is a combination of argument from sign and argument from analogy (both fallacies). I'm real worried that these non thinking idiots think my loigc is bad. For these guys "bad logic" amounts to "I don't like you."

Suggestion: Be nice or all of your gawd outlets will be taxed just like every other business.

They always think they are going push the majority around. their little 3% is going to run rough shod over our 90%. Bring it man. let's go. lets barricades and get our guns and go at each other. I'll tell you what, just to be fair we will only use 10% of our guys we still outnumber you by a huge margin. Who are you going to push around when you are not on a message board? If the atheist thing doesn't work out will you shave your head and start beating up blacks and Jews?

The "God Hates you hate him back" Guy Discovered my Article

Atheist intellectual conduct seminar on religion and society


The Blog is called "Rationalist Blog" I think he's the one who did the book God Hates you, Hate Him back, but i"m not sure. But his blog has a big banner that says it. It appears to be him, C.J. Werleman.

This is such a profound intellectual book, it's on the level of some of Jack Webb's best rants on DragNet 1967, and his logic is about on a par with Webb's as well. Here are some of the most superficial reasons to think religion is addictive I've ever seen. These are up there with "90% of heroine addicts started with Pot, therefore, Pot causes heroine addiction.

your arguments are ludicrous.


Werelman

1. “Religion is the opiate of the masses” -Karl Marx

Meta:>>>proves nothing, Marx was a jerk


Werelman

2. All children are born atheists, thus religion is indoctrinated/socialized into you. Just as no children are born drug addicts. (not withstanding ‘crack babies’)

Meta:>>>that’s silly, we have innate ideas of God. that’s what the God part of the brain proves. We have the idea of God hard wired into our brains, therefore, we are not born atheists we are born believers. It doesn’t make any difference if you need socialization to teach it that doesn’t prove it’s a drug, you need socialization to become a drug addicts. that’s why addcis are a “sub culture” that’s what sub cultures are, counter socialization.


Werelman

3. Drugs help you escape from reality. Drugs dupe users into escaping the harsh realities of dealing with everyday life. Similarly religion will make its users believe they can transcend reality i.e. without wings, or as recommended by Jesus – handle snakes, and/or drink poison. I know smack addicts that have the same delusions.

Meta>>>Of course its’ just your little mad up opinion based upon ignorance that God isn’t real. Real thinkers and smart know he is. Therefore, youa re argumetn is jsut another stupid assertion.

you can’t account for the innate ideas of God that proved by the “God part of the Brain.” That is a good reason to believe there is a God. your argument is begging the question.

that has nothing to do with proving addiction anyway.


Werelman

4. Drug addicts often show signs of schizophrenic and delusional behavior, including talking to themselves. How is this different to prayer?

Meta:>>>(1) you have no study to back that up. I’ve never heard that and it’s not proved and you offer no evidence to confirm it.

(2) you are begging the question because it’s just your opinion that belief in God is tha way

(3) at leas 12 studies prove there is no relation between religious experience and mental illness.

(4) you can’t link drug addiction to mental illness anyway.

(5) if you could it would just be an argument from sign. you don’t have a causal mechanism.


Werelman

5. Drug addicts are often incoherent when high. Take a visit to any evangelical church and watch that congregation speak in tongues and thus complete babble.

>>>that is nothing but ignorant mockery. speaking in tongues is not the same as incoherence. Anyone speaking in tongues can stop doing it and talk rational instantly. Its not something that comes over you that you can’t control. I can speak in tongues and work hard math problems at the same time. It’s something one chooses to do, it’s not an epileptic fit.


Wereleman

6. Like a drug, the intoxicating effects of religion cannot last forever. Questions of faith begin to creep in. Questions regarding the suspension of natural laws begin to seep in..Thus the faithful have to increase the religious dose to stay high, to ward off contradictions, absurdities, and inconsistincies.

Meta>>>that is not a proof that it’s addictive. you can spin it that way or you could say doubt in any proposition occurs to anyone at any time and they need to re think or hear the answer. you can define haring answers as getting a fix. you are merely twisting the fact to suit a superficial case that you can’t back up with any kind of data or any kind of support. You have no studies, you haven no scientific proof of any kind that supports your raving.

you are doing nothing but mocking and ridiculing things that are over your head.


Werelman

7. Religion, like a drug, has a tendency to steal your life. A voluntary trade: accept the lies and illusions in return for mind numbing escape. Addictive traits.

Meta>>>that is clearly and obviously just your emtonal hateful opinion. 300 empirical studies say you are wrong! The stuidies done by psychologists not by preachers, not by christian, non christain shrinks, show you are wrong! Religious belief is good for you, it makes your life better, it makes your mind better. Religous believers who have experiences of God’s presence are much less likely to experience depression than are unbelievers. Religious experience people are much less likely to be mentally ill than are unbelievers, that is an established fact by 300 empirical studies..

Werelman

8. Religious fundamentalists, particularly those that convert as adults i.e new born Christians, in more instances than not – lose their old friends. Meth addicts lose their friends because of the constant requests to borrow money, and skittish behavior. Evangelicals tend to lose their old buddies because we tire of the constant evangelizing. And ultimately drug addicts prefer the company of their own, as do fundamentalists with their own flock.

Meta>>>very stupid and shallow argument from sign. you might as well said 98% of all heroin addicts drink milk as babies, therefore, milk causes heroine addiction.

you actually don’t have any data to back up your assertion about converts losing friends. some do some don’t, you are really quite shallow.

Werelman

9. Religious need their ‘hits’. Sunday Church.

Meta>>>atheist need hits by mocking Christians on message boards.

This guy is a real obvious proof of hate group atheism. His blog is on the puerile level of name calilng. He writes about things like why Obama is really an atheist (basically "I like Obama therefoer he must believe like I do). Ten reasons why Jesus sucked at sports, and so on. this is nothing moer than a third grader writing on bathroom walls.

If you hate God how do you feel about who believe in God? This guy doesn't have enough mental maturity to distinguish between hating God and hating people who believe in God.

The Illiterate Connection: When Atheism Becomes a Drug

In the early 70s a major motion picture which put Gene Hackman on the map as a major star was The French Connection.(1971) This was a film about a famous true story of a drug bust that involved the rarely heard from French Mafia (based in Marses). "Connection" was (may still be for all I know) drug slang (60s) for the source of supply. In his insulting attempt to get me to post on the exCrhistian.net board Bill Walked referred to a book (although not to the proper author) "When God becomes a drug." (see below). My analysis of the psychology of hate group atheism has been that they primarily people with low self esteem, perhaps they have bad relationships with their fathers and they are seeking to feel superior to bolder their flagging self esteem. Mocking and ridiculing religious people makes them feel powerful, so that makes them feel better about themselves.The feeling of power is like a drug. they get a "rush" (another drug term) and they want more and more and more. So they make riducling reilgious people a way of life.

the site that Walker asked me to look at his no great shakes. As far as I can see it's nothing more than an "atheist connection" that is a vehicle for hate group atheism to meet and ridicule the target. "Ridicule the target" is from that stage four of the FBI hate grop paradigm, stage four the hate group gathers to ridicule the target (the hated group)> that's what that site is for, to give the Dawkies a place to go to get their ridicule rush. The whole site is pure hatred. The first article by Valerie Tarico, "Huckabee Seduced by Cop Killer's Christianity" winds up attributing the events in Seattle to, three guesses what? Christianity of course!

I couldn’t help wondering about how an erratic serial criminal like Maurice Clemmons ends up on the streets. And since Clemmons was released by Mike Huckabee, the Arkansas governor and presidential hopeful who has made fundamentalist religion the center of his politics, I couldn’t help wondering if religion played a part.

It turns out that, in fact, religion may have played several different roles in the tragedy, just as it did in the recent slaughter at Fort Hood. This time, though, Islam had nothing to do with it. At Fort Hood, fundamentalist Christianity created an adversarial, proselytizing, holy war atmosphere, while Islam released the trigger lock. In the Seattle killings, Christianity stands as the one theological ingredient in the lethal brew. It consumed the mind of the killer, who possibly had apocalyptic delusions. A Seattle Times headline today quoted his uncle: “He was all about money . . . suddenly, he was all about God.”

Christianity made him a cop killer just like it will make any Christian into a Hitler. That is obvious hog wash and pure unadulterated hate. I don't know why people can't see what a hateful, idiotic, and self serving (and "other hating") comment that is, but it is so predictable. they did the same thing with 9/11. anything that is bad in the world is automatically connected to Christianity. That's just a main stay of Atheist propaganda. Anyone who can't see how stupid that is, is a total fool. But I guess that's the "no true fool fallacy."

Another pretty obvious hate trip is a book review of a book called God Hates you, Hate him Back, by CJ Werleman. The Review is by an author unnamed. It's just a typical atheist hatchet job on Scripture. Taken out of context, understood super literally, focus on the most enigmatic parts to make it seem worse. Like any atheist post on a message board. But look at the title, which is the only real hook the book has, "God hates' you, hate him back." these guys profess not to believe there is a God but then they take the belief system of something they don't believe in and project a hatred for a supposedly non-existent being in the guise of his hatred for you, so you get your hate flowing and your defensive nature working. Look at the solution. Is it about understanding believers? Is it about creating understanding between people? No it's hate. The solution is hate; "hate him back." what do you do when someone hates you? Hate him back! wow what a liberal and progressive way to think. Would they actually advocate this in other regards? They do they write books called "men hate women, hate them back?" So they teach revenge feminism? "Straights hate you, hate them back." But of course then they want you to dismiss it al with "O that's just humor."


Of course the mainstay of the site is the de-conversion story. Copied after the conversion story, which was one of the main driving forces of the great born again period of the early 70s, the de born again story is calculated to tell the tale of disillusionment and falling away. It's all the opposite "I suddenly realized I was all alone, no one was answering me." I prayed really hard for a chocolate sundae but it did not appear. The bible had lied me. so after 250 years of being a Christian I decided to become an atheist at last I see the truth. Now I'm so happy because I'm not being deceived and I post on the secular web every day where I call religious people names and make fun of everything then say. It"s a full rich life in the army of satan.

Rita De Alverez writes "The Long Journey of my De Conversion."

By the time I was in high school life at home was chaotic and deteriorating. Feeling God’s love was a comfort and refuge to me. Although I attended a Catholic high school I’d had enough exposure to other religions to easily cross denominational boundaries. I never thought of God or Truth as limited to any particular church. I listened every Friday and Sat night to Billy Graham’s Hour of Decision and would watch his Crusades on TV. I read his book, World Aflame, and found a purpose and vibrant belief system. Kathryn Kuhlman and Oral Roberts proved God’s miraculous healing power. Robert Schuller manifested His optimism and love.

Looking back, of course World Aflame would appeal to me because MY world was aflame. His urgency and alarm resonated with my own. I was confused, searching and longed for something to depend on. I know now that this longing is a normal part of the human psyche. I felt sorry for those who didn’t have this Relationship and assumed their lives were miserable. Convinced the end of times was imminent because of man’s rebellion against God, I thought about, read, prayed and shared Christ’s message throughout my teens (“Excuse me, are you a Christian?”).

The beginning of my de-conversion was not about doubting the existence of God. It began when He became irrelevant. What kind of deity allows, out of impotence or apathy, innocents to needlessly suffer? There is no excuse. Such a god is unworthy of affection or loyalty. Nor could I expect this deity to protect me and my child from the evils that he allowed to befall others more virtuous than myself. Like letting go of a cherished baby blanket, a hopeless romance or finally leaving home for good, one gets to this point only when one is ready. One has “God” as long as one needs a god. I know many never reach this conclusion. I did and it’s as simple as that.

trying to promulgate the model that religious people are just sick stupid people who can't think and need some security blanket, when all the while the answer is to ridicule religious people then you feel good about yourself and you are powerful so you don't need the comfort from religion, just hate. Of course the nature of this person's faith was shallow, and the nature of the story is stilted to make it seem more shallow. She does not write about the presence of God or speaking in tongues or seeing miracles or sensing the truth in the world or mystical experience, it's all about a shallow psychological security to help a bad home life. The reasons for falling away are equally innocuous. but the the whole thing is slanted to convey the impression religious people are weak and silly and hating them makes you strong.

Atheism is dead finds similar problems with the site:

I quickly came to find that ExChristian.Net is an anti-Christian support group wherein its members, apparently generally lacking intellectual integrity, urge each other toward belligerence and the committing of all manner of fallacy. It is saddening that something potentially constructive, such as having them make assertions about evilbile.com and having me respond, and on it would go, their instinct is to launch into zealous rage against anyone who dares to disagree with them.

I should state that this parsed essay was not technically about ExChristian.Net itself but about its adherents. However, something has occurred that makes me think that ExChristian.Net’s administrators are now playing a part in the discussion which I am addressing. Now, for all I know some of the commentators I will deal with in this essay are administrators, I do not know. I have been engaged in discussions in two of their posts: It's like Cancer and TOP TEN SIGNS YOU ARE A CHRISTIAN FUNDY. What I do know is that, for some odd reason, all of the comments in the TOP TEN posts have mysteriously disappeared. Perhaps it was some sort of computer related glitch that left the posts intact and only deleted all of the comments, I do not know. Fortunately, I had already copied and saved all of the comments that were made to me and present them hereinafter.

Here is an important point. Walker assured me that they have pleasant accepting atmosphere, they are just concerned about me and they love everyone and they want to help weak stupid religious people to find their way and get out of being God addicts. They are patient and kind and willing to help. The guy on atheism is dead (read the article it's really important) shows the list of responses they gave him, when he tried to argue politely, here's an example of their loving compassion and their sense of concern for the poor afflicted religious addicts:

Let us begin with ridicule in the form of name calling. I posted on ExChristian.Net as MarianoApologeticus (since Mariano was already taken when I registered).
Here is a taste:

MoronicusApoligeticus…jerk…load of ****…fundies…trolling for carcasses…MarianoPrevaricatoricus…your pathetic and infantile dumb-****…delusional ********…idiot…dubious drivel…Forgetful Freddy…beat it…Whoop-de-frickin'-doo! You're using your own interpretation of ******** to try to disprove someone else's interpretation of said ********. You may as well go debate some Harry Potter - it's all fiction anyway!...Hahahahahahahahaha, ha, ha, ha…TAKE A HIKE…utter ********…your Apologetic drivel…how deep in your *** you had to dig to…asinine logic…it's time for you to paint your **** white and run with the antelope…your god delusion…MarianoApologeticus (aka Mario-Brothers Aplogetics)…spill your trash…you seem strong in the whine department…Moronic Apologist…Marianorepeaticus…blah, blah, blah…Dumb-***…ye of little gray matter…Grow up…all sorts of stupid, that Christian philosophy is!....****….*******….disrespectful, disingenuous religious person….apologetic horse****….you are a ******* liar….Yoo-*******-hoo….**** off….your sky-daddy….mind-****….keep your distance [expletives removed]

When the guy tried to call them on it, well he puts it:

When I pointed out that they were replacing reasoned discourse with ridicule someone stated, “ridicule works just fine for Me, thanks.”

why they are just practically social workers!

This proves my point about atheism as a drug. They throw off a religious life in which their shallow faith leads them to fear God rather than love God. Then they suffer cognitive dissonance and have to justify their decision by taking on super helpings of hate and ridicule to use the Rush from the powerful feeling they get by ridiculing to obliterate the dissonance they feel inside form their treason to God. Mocking and ridiculing makes them feel powerful and like a drug they have to have more.

Which is the real drug? The one that transforms your life and makes you better and gives you peace and makes you happy?



Dr. Michale Nielson,Ph.D. Psychology and religion.
"http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/ukraine/index.htm"

Quote:

"What makes someone psychologically healthy? This was the question that guided Maslow's work. He saw too much emphasis in psychology on negative behavior and thought, and wanted to supplant it with a psychology of mental health. To this end, he developed a hierarchy of needs, ranging from lower level physiological needs, through love and belonging, to self- actualization. Self-actualized people are those who have reached their potential for self-development. Maslow claimed that mystics are more likely to be self-actualized than are other people. Mystics also are more likely to have had "peak experiences," experiences in which the person feels a sense of ecstasy and oneness with the universe. Although his hierarchy of needs sounds appealing, researchers have had difficulty finding support for his theory."

Poloma and Pendelton The Faith Factor: An Annotated Bibliography of Systematic Reviews And Clinical Research on Spiritual Subjects Vol. II, David B. Larson M.D., Natiional Institute for Health Research Dec. 1993, p. 3290.

Quote:

"The authors found that religious satisfaction was the most powerful predictor of existential well being. The degree to which an individual felt close to God was the most important factor in terms of existential well-being. While frequency of prayer contributed to general life satisfaction and personal happiness. As a result of their study the authors concluded that it would be important to look at a combindation of religious items, including prayer, religionship with God, and other measures of religious experince to begin to adequately clearlify the associations of religious committment with general well-being."

Or is it something that you can never be truly satiated from, that makes you crave more, drains your life and makes it empty?


Dr. Jorge W.F. Amaro, Ph.D., Head psychology dept. Sao Paulo

[ http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/amaro.html]

a) Unbeliever is the Sick Soul

"A non spiritualized person is a sick person, even if she doesn't show any symptom described by traditional medicine. The supernatural and the sacredness result from an elaboration on the function of omnipotence by the mind and can be found both in atheist and religious people. It is an existential function in humankind and the uses each one makes of it will be the measure for one's understanding."

When God Becomes a Drug: An Excercize In Atheist Propganganda

Poster Bill Walker (a follower of this blog) going for the "big one" trying to de-convert me )on (Metacrock's Blog) introduces a book:

There is a book that I think may help you. "When God Becomes a Drug.By Bart Aikins. Please vdon't feel that this is a criticism of you. You are a victim- one of countless millions. I am rooting for you.

On the comment page he says:

Joe, I read all of you post. I know you had a tough time. I'm glad you have that bgehind you. Bu god/jesus had nothing to do with it. Ple4ase Joe, read " When God Becomes a Drug." Joe this book w2as written for YOU. You have nothing to lose but your delusions. Join us at ExChristian.net. You will be as welcome as the flowers in May. Share your experiences & your thoughts with us. You may write as a Xian or a former Xian. Many people start with us as Xians, & are 'won over'. But you are very welcome to make posts as a Xian. It is POSSIBLE that you can make some4one revert to Xianity, thru reasoning, tho I haven't seen anyone who did that, to my knowledge. But I reaslly think it will give you the experiences & thoughts of other people who have suffered as you did.

So I looked for this book. I found that He got the author's name so totally wrong it makes me think he's putting me on. Instead Bart Aikins it's Leo Booth. Booth is an Episcopal priest who wrote this book not as a denouncement of all religon but as a warning against the kind of rigid fundamentalism we all know and hate. He is in no way saying that all religion is like this. As one book reviewer says:

"And yet he says that there is nothing in the nature of religion which makes it unhealthy in itself, and that it is possible for a neurotic to use a healthy belief system in an unhealthy way. Booth writes that it is not necessarily the contents of the belief that make a system addictive, but rather the personal rigidity of its purveyors who discourage any kind of questioning or disbelief."
--John A. Speyrer

In spite of this we find the atheist having a field day in their propaganda using this book as though it totally disproves all religion. Shy David's Religion page, (there's a scholarly source for you) does a hack job on the book. Sky David is so balanced and fair minded he opens with the balanced and articulate statement:

Religion has always been used by evil men (and some times women) to inflict evil upon the world. The evil enacted is always either by design or by consequence. The latter generally has two causes: the person engaged in evil believes he is doing good, godly works, or another person or groups of people take the result of someone's good works and builds upon those works with evil acts. A specific example I can readily think of is Islam: when Mohammed founded his religion, he taught liberal reforms such as equality for females and tolerance for infidels. One problem, though: he was illiterate. When the Koran / Qur’an / Alcoran was written by his followers, Mohammed's teachings were drastically altered. Slavery of women became law; infidels were taken hostage and, upon threat of death, ordered to convert; women who did not sexually submit to their owners could be beaten, with the authority of law.

nothing polemical there is there!? He has a link to a page using the book for propaganda. He presents a chart used in the book but takes it out of context by giving no basis in understandign what the book is really about:

THE TWELVE STEPS FOR RELIGIOUS ADDICTS
(TWELVE STEPS TO RELIGIOUS ADDICTION)

1. We admitted that we were powerless over our dysfunctional religion or beliefs -- that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Spiritual Power WITHIN OURSELVES could guide us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to this Spiritual Power as we understood this Spiritual Power.

4. Made a searching and fearless inventory of our dysfunctional religious beliefs and behaviours.

5. Admitted to our Spiritual Power, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of those behaviours.

6. Were entirely ready to work with our Spiritual Power in replacing all those old behaviours.

7. Worked with our Spiritual Power to help replace our dysfunctional patterns.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we made mistakes, promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with our Spiritual Power, as we understood Spiritual Power, praying only for knowledge of that Power's guidance and the willingness to carry it out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Of cousre he offers no data whatsoever that religion is addiction, that one can make an analogy form drugs/alcohol to religion or belief systems. No studies, no evidence, the whole thing is based upon hating religion enough to compare it to soemthing it's nto even remotly like but something negative (alcohol). The whole thing is nothing but argument from analogy.

He also offers a list of 'signs' of addiction similarly glaned form misreading the book:

Taken from When God Becomes A Drug by Leo Booth.

SYMPTOMS OF RELIGIOUS ADDICTION

1. Inability to think, doubt, or question information or authority

2. Black-and-white, simplistic thinking

3. Shame-based belief that you aren't good enough, or you aren't "doing it right"

4. Magical thinking that God will fix you

5. Scrupulosity; rigid, obsessive adherence to rules, codes of ethics, or guidelines

6. Uncompromising, judgmental attitudes

7. Compulsive praying, going to church or crusades, quoting scripture

8. Unrealistic financial contributions

9. Believing that sex is dirty -- that our bodies and physical pleasures are evil

10. Compulsive eating or excessive fasting

11. Conflict with science, medicine, and [secular] education

12. Progressive detachment from the real world, isolation, breakdown of relationships

13. Psychosomatic illness: sleeplessness, back pains, headaches, hypertension

14. Manipulating scripture or texts, feeling chosen, claiming to receive special messages from God

15. Trancelike state or religious high, wearing a glazed happy face

16. Cries for help; mental, emotional, physical breakdown; hospitalization

Most of those could also be used of atheism, or fashion deign or just about anything you wanted to compere.

Inability to think, doubt, or question information or authority

Black-and-white, simplistic thinking

sure sounds like atheism to me. Here's a trick. he doesn't give any page numbers or context so you have no idea how faithful he is to what the book is saying. Now does an Episcopal priest really say that reading the bible to clam oneself is the begining of religious addiction?

Y STAGE:

• * Ordinary religious or spiritual lifestyle
• # Using Bible to calm nerves

• * Excessive church-going / Bible study
• # Praying before attending functions
• # Church / Bible becomes greater focal point

• * Using church / Bible / prayer to avoid problems
• # Black-and-white thinking increases
• # Missing family gatherings or work because of religious functions

• * Compulsively thinking about or quoting scripture
• * Preoccupation with church / Bible study
• # Thinking only of church

These could apply to any Christian, non Christian even non religious people. It could apply people who like classical music. Anyone who lived through the 60's remembers arguments about pot leads to heroine. This is the same kind of reasoning. Those arguments were usually countered by Milks leads to pot.

This really represents the most innane slip shod thinking. If this does not qualify as a hate group strategy what does? It's on a par with Blacks are lazy and Mexicans steal. Or is it Mexicans are lazy and blacks steal? I'm forgotten my old time Texan prejudice 101.

Of course the atheist propagnda brigage who comment on books on Amazon, books they probalby have not read:

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Helped me see my fears that i displaced for "God", January 3, 2008

By	A. Mendelovitz - See all my reviews

This review is from: When God Becomes a Drug: Book 1; Understanding Religious addiction & religious abuse (Paperback)

This book is amazing. i read the older version. It taught me how what i thought was certain powers and divine messages and things the world was showing me were really my own fears that i misplaced and transformed into a god. This book and the help i later recieved from a therapist were able to return me back to society in a more wordly way. This book was fantastic in that it helped show me how when i was suffering i was creating false illusions and ways out of it through God thinking that God would solve all my problems, when in fact i needed to confront my emotional issues in real life. I am very greatful for Father Leo for taking me out of my religous persecution i was brining on my self and showing me how i was torturing myself emotionally in the name of God. How these tortures were not based on God but on my own fears and my desires to heal myself. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who feels that they are treating themselves poorly in the name of god. For example anyone beaeting themselves up believing sex or masterbation is wrong while it is a gift the earth has granted us.

I know religion is stupid now. I can't wait to get on the secular web and be patted on the back and called "smart" for a change. that god stuff is all for stupid people. They keep slinging words around like "addiction" and 12 step with no medical evidence, no psychological studies. No spiritually mature person would give up a relationship with God just because some ultra liberal unbelieving priest suggested that belief in God's spiritual reality is an "addiction." That person is a mindless drown who can't think for her self. This just continues to prove that atheists can't paly fair, can't think, don't understand very much.

"The Painful Truth"
book Review by Gary L.

Anyone who has ever tried to challenge a religious addict's belief system has undoubtedly been met with hostility bordering on fury. People who are spiritually healthy will not react with fear and anger to questions about their beliefs and practices.

Healthy spirituality in contrast is freeing; differing beliefs or even outright opposition do not threaten you. The symptoms of religious addiction point to a narrow, restrictive belief system, which limits your spiritual growth and victimizes you as well as those around you

Again, no data, no proof ther is such a thing as "religious addiction." If that is the case is there Addiction to art? To classical music? To being nice? Isn't everything and addiction? How about breathing and eating food? It started out with just a little milk now and then and now I have to have red meat all the time.

The real tragedy is how these people will never bother to read the real studies about religious eperince and its transfomrative effects on people's lives. 300 studies show that religion is the best thing for you. It transformas your life dramatically, it's taken people off drugs and stopped Heroin addiction and Alcohol. They want to shut down trust of God and they want you to stop praying to stop believing that God will help you. Instead of trying to understand these things in wisdom and not be stupid about it they are so self serving they have to try and destroy the best thing there is. The research I've done for my book points me toward the Rosario study which shows that religious experience and spiritual practice turns the lives of chronically ill and "challenged" ("handy capped") into positive growth situations that make them able to cope and enable them to grow as people. These are not things that drugs do for you. This is the not the result of addiction.

Now you can believe the hate group propaganda which lies and distorted the evidence, (Booth has no evidence to begin with he himself is a recovering Alcoholic so he's just following the only model he knows becuase he has not had the good religious experiences) or you can look at the scientific studies and see what's proved about the nature of religious experience. But we see the atheist hate group propaganda for what it is.




My religious experience argument which talks about many of the studies

Argument from religious instinct which employs many of the studies and talks about their Trans formative effects

The Mohan article with bibliography where he describes what many of the most recent studies say. Mohan is a practicing psychiatrist unlike Booth.

there are books arguing that atheism is personality disorder. For example Atheist Personality Disorder: Addressing a Distorted Mindset Fr. John J. Pasquini (Author)

That book is not very good either, it's as bad as Booth's. It's the same thing the atheist are doing. but two can play at this game. All this atheist propaganda is going to accomplish is just more of the same.