Quote of the Day: Mark Twain



"Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion—several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight." —Mark Twain

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Imperfect and Immoral Teachings of Jesus Christ

Image
[Disclaimer: In what follows is an examination of the immoral teachings of an imperfect, or perhaps I should say all too human, Jesus Christ.] Introduction Critics of organized religion often point out the problems behind faith, namely that faith based thinking is always directly tied to faith based acts. This means, quite simply, that the more intolerant one’s verses of scripture and tenets found in holy books are, the more these doctrines can breed ill will and contempt and have a negative influence on the thinking of the individual who subscribes to that particular brand of faith.  Upholding the Teachings of Christ as Virtuous: Are Christians Moral or Simply Morally Confused? Christians like to cite that Christ taught, "But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you" (Matthew 5:44) and will remind us that this shows that not all Christians are into
Read more

Conflating Atheism and Agnosticism is a Mistake

Image
In a discussion over at Bud's blog Dead Logic , a reader asked a question I have been hearing more and more recently. It's a good question, so I thought I would do my part to try and answer it. Doesn't admitting to being an agnostic instead of an atheist FEEL like you're being wishy-washy, or not fully committing to your "belief"? ... I understand that it's only honest to say that we CAN'T be sure, but I sure do hate to show weakness (real or perceived) in an argument. Not at all.  Agnosticism deals with knowledge.  Atheism deals with belief.  The Agnostic position cannot assume whether a thing like a God could exist or not given the lack of sheer evidence for such a things existence. Therefore knowing with any given certainty just isn't possible. The agnostic then makes the claim that a definitive answer with regard to "knowing" of God's existence cannot be given either way. Atheism, however, can state with assurance t
Read more

Discussing the Historicity of Jesus with a Christian Agnostic

Image
Steven Jake, the author of the up and coming blog  TheChristian Agnostic , [1]  wrote a rather thorough response to my lengthy comment asking him about the state of the evidence regarding the historical Jesus. I am pleased he took the time to write a thorough response. I only feel that such a thorough response deserves my own more detailed response as my initial comment was merely that—a comment. So without further ado I will address some of Steven Jake’s comments and concerns. Initially Steven Jake (henceforth SJ) posted a quote from New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman claiming that there is an abundance of evidence for a historical Jesus. I merely contested this claim asking for what evidence we have that would be considered historically reliable. As I see it there is none. That doesn’t mean, however, I don’t think there  wasn’t  a historical Jesus, just that we cannot prove if there was or wasn’t and so I remain agnostic as to the historicity of Jesus—not a mythicist
Read more