My Great Awakening

[John Fazio]

Everyone:

Well, this has gone far beyond what I thought it would, but it's OK; this kind of mental stimulation will keep us from getting Alzheimer's.

AussieMick (which, I gather, means you are of Irish descent?)

I too do not accept the tenets of Catholicism (I have an especially hard time with those tenets that find no authority in the Gospels, e.g. limbo, purgatory, the exclusion of women from the priesthood, celibacy for priests, etc.), and apparently that can be said for a lot of other people too inasmuch as there has been schism in the Church since the moment Jesus breathed his last (Aryans, Gnostics, Albigensians, Waldensians, Hussites and all the various stripes of protestants from the 16th century to the present). Why should you have difficulty believing that mutual help among humans is a product of evolution? Clearly early humans had to cooperate for a successful hunt and for defense against their own kind, biological cousins, predators, the elements and the whims of nature. Thus, according to Hobbes, we have the social contract (or compact) and the state. We don't kill each other "for no real purpose". Ask any killer why he or she killed and he or she will give you a reason, especially in time of war. I believe you are mistaken about altruism. I believe there are many examples of lower animals (lower than us, that is) and insects that help their own kind and even sacrifice their lives for the survival of the group.

Eva: "If all people, etc." That isn't going to happen, because the love of money is the root of all evil (St. Paul). Most people love money (more accurately, the things it will buy) than they hate injustice. Furthermore, if you read the commandments carefully, you will see in them a prescription for the preservation of private property, not a code for achieving and securing justice.

Gene:

Please don't sell yourself short: There is nothing wrong with your writing skills. Further, it is not a case of "blaming" God for the problems, pain and misery in the world, it is a case, rather, of expressing surprise (incredulity really) that he would allow and tolerate flagrant injustice, which occurs everywhere and for all time. Injustice does not mean suffering for making the wrong choices, it means suffering even when one makes the right choices or makes no choice at all. What choice did the 225,000 Indonesians make to deserve to be drowned? Satan? Is that the talking snake in the garden? Snakes don't talk. "Live the way that God wants you to." Which God? The one who has a son, but not a prophet (The Father)? Or the one who has a prophet, but not a son (Allah)? Or the one who has neither a son, nor a prophet? (Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, etc.)? Or the one who reigns in the spirit world with other Gods, including Brahma, Krishna, Vanu, Ganesh, etc. Or the God who is not a God, but a great teacher of ethics (Guatama (Buddha), Confucius, Lao Tze, etc.)?Which do you accept and why? Why does one have a greater claim to truth than the others? By what standard and according to whose authority?

Rob: They don't need someone to blame, but to appeal to for help. The person who does not have to go outside of himself or herself occasionally for help in the struggle for survival has not been born. I believe that it is this need for help in the struggle for survival, a process ongoing for eons, that has implanted religion in our brain chemistry so that it is now almost as much a part of our being as eating, drinking, sleeping and procreating. Those who attack it (the "New Atheists"), therefore, are wasting their time, energy and money. Leave it alone (benign neglect).

John