TheVillageAtheist

I don't agree with that. Religion codifies and institutionalizes certain behaviors, and causes otherwise good people to do bad things. Sure, bad people would do bad things regardless, but religion provides them with an outlet, and ropes in otherwise decent people into that bad behavior. You mention Hitler, how aware are you that the Holocaust was the end result of a thousand years of antisemitism through violence and mistreatment in Europe? Hitler encouraged pogroms during the Holocaust that built the momentum for the Final Solution. That monster was just the latest in a millennial line of Jew-hating thugs. And who really cares if Jesus defied the church? He was still a bigot and misogynist, still condoned things we consider barbaric, like slavery. He was the one who introduce the idea of eternal damnation to the Abrahamic faiths. Before him, you didn't have to worry about burning in Hell forever. That was the work of gentle Jesus.

That about sums it up. At least in the case of the world's most popular religions.

Clearly the Jesus we encounter in the Bible is a mythological persona. That one isn't real. But there are clues to suggest that he--or whoever the Jesus god-man character was based on--really did exist. The best evidence for this is the seeming conspiracy by Biblical authors to place his birth in the City of David. The two authors who write of his birth story give wildly conflicting reports of the nativity. Luke goes so far as to invent a Roman census for the purpose of moving Joseph and Mary from their home in Galilee to Bethlehem for Jesus' birth. If Jesus were a wholecloth fabrication, why not just have him from Bethlehem? Why the subterfuge? To me, the fact that the authors strain to place his birth in the only place where the prophecy could be fulfilled indicates that there was a particularly influential rabbi from Galilee around that time. I do cringe at the idea of people calling him a great moralist. He was the leader of a death cult, and his teachings reflected that. Turning the other cheek, giving no care for the morrow, abandoning your family; these injunctions are irresponsible when viewed in any other context than "The world is about to end." We use some of his words as platitudinous ideals, but even the most basic of them don't really pass the test when scrutinized. For example, is it even possible to love your neighbor as you love yourself? How could a society survive without human judgment? Our society relies on being able to judge people based on their motives and actions. And how moral is it to allow your enemy to strike you? That's immoral on any level, from the kid allowing himself to be bullied, to the nation who allows invaders to cross its borders unimpeded. The end result for both is destruction. This can only be considered moral if you believe the world is about to end and Jesus is God incarnate. Otherwise, he's just a guy leading you down a primrose path. Anyway, that's my take.

Hello! I'm TheVilliageAtheist, don't have the science chops, but I do enjoy reading about cosmology and physics, and really enjoy good debates on religion and ethics. I feel like a piece of meat right now, so please stop staring at me.

I really don't think we need to get into the odds of life occurring by chance, or any other math-related discussion in order to have a good idea as to whether or not there is a god. All we really have to do is understand where religion and superstition comes from. If you can show that superstition is a byproduct of ignorance, and that religion is a natural product of superstition, then you can reasonably conclude that the very concept of godhood itself is nothing more than a human invention. In other words, godhood itself is no less a figment of our imagination than any particular god is. We shouldn't simply disregard easily-debunked gods like Yahweh or Zeus, just as we shouldn't simply disregard individual leprechauns. Rather, we should disregard godhood itself.