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The metaphor still doesn't work. You are not like Eratosthenes, who examined the position of the sun on the solstice in 240 BC and determined that the earth was spherical. In your own metaphor, you are like the flat-earthers, believing without proof, with no evidence at all (other than a "feeling") to support a view which can be observed to be untrue.

Naturally. If you want to know the difference between what is true and what is false, this is exactly what you have to do. Otherwise how can you tell?

You don't just personally "deem" something proof...there are standards of proof which work.

If you want to know the difference between what is true and what is false, what better criteria to choose than a comparison with reality using standards that work?

This is not reasonable. This technique of determining reality is known to lead to wrong conclusions. Why do it like this? Why not use methods which are known to produce accurate understanding?

This is completely wrong. People who value evidence will go where it leads.

How is that supposed to be good?

Because blind faith is creating great and terrible error.

Is that supposed to recommend faith? They were wrong. Their faith was unfounded. They would have been better off not doing that. Why should Mormons (or anyone) be doing that now?

I am talking about establishing the accuracy of claims with evidence, using standards of evidence that are known to produce accurate conclusions.

Naturally, if no evidence comes forward to support a claim, then dismissing it as unfounded is precisely the reasonable course of action. That is exactly the process that is used to distinguish between true claims and false claims. Otherwise, how can you tell?

Arriving at your conclusion without evidence is known to produce wrong results. It didn't work for the flat-earthers. Why do you think it will work for you?

Why not use a method that is known to produce accurate conclusions?

No. Following the evidence means being willing to change what you thought previously when the evidence shows something different. People who respect evidence will change as needed.

If you are like that you should be trying not to be.

So you now just "hope" that Mormonism is true? That is an extremely different claim than saying you think it is true. If you just "hope" it's true, why bother? Why not find out what is actually true?

There is nothing healthy about believing the world is flat when it can be observed to be round. It makes no sense. It creates error. It devalues reason.

It would be healthier if everyone understood that you can't determine the shape of the earth by listening to what a prophet said about it. You have to find out by examining the earth itself and seeing what it is. You have to acknowledge that even if you know nothing about whether a claim is true, you are left with another, equally valid truth - that you do not know.

Denying the truth is not healthy. In fact it is killing the world. My great hope is that some people will stop.

Belief in unsubstantiated faith claims requires and promotes unreason. Unreason is destroying the ability of humans to maintain worthwhile societies and a healthy biosphere.

Religious faith in general is devaluing reason, yes.

This method of determination is known to produce massive, terrible error. It does not produce anything that can be verified. Conclusions arrived at in this manner could be wrong. Many, many of them have been shown to be. Throughout history this method has regularly produced error with effects from bigotry to injustice to atrocity. Why would you use a method known to produce terrible error? Why not use the method that is known, and can be shown, to produce accurate understanding of reality?

No prophet has ever uttered a word that could "only" have come from God. What they said that was true, anybody could have said. The rest is pure speculation, no more informed than that of yours or mine. Why believe one person who claims to be a prophet, but not every other? Why believe any claims that could just as easily be completely wrong?

Forming conclusions which are not not based on evidence is known to produce great error, yes.

For example, this is why evidence is required in a court of law, and without evidence the truth is not presumed to be known. People learned centuries ago that the case is unknown until it is proved...ie, people are innocent until proven guilty.

Our society has determined that conclusions without evidence are unwarranted and create error - a terrible miscarriage of justice.

As another example, until reason and science were discovered, people believed all kinds of wrong things - like, the world was flat, that disease was caused by evil spirits, that thunder was caused by angry gods, etc. Many of those conclusions without evidence can now be shown to be wrong. Coming to conclusions that way is known to produce erroneous explanations. It is not known for producing answers that can be verified or solutions that work.

In contrast, compare the way our knowlegdge and abilities have increased exponentially since the process of conclusions with evidence was discovered. We can cure diseases, explore space, create incredible machines that free us from toil, etc. Using this method to reach conclusions has produced an evolution of understanding that has transformed our existence repeatedly.

Conclusions without evidence create plenty of error, because there is no way to check. The conclusions are often wrong.

Personal revelation is just one kind of conclusion without evidence, and yes, it is known to create error. People have very often done very terrible things because they truly believed, based on some internal thought process, that this is what God wanted them to do.

Acting on one's internal revelations of what God wants regularly produces bigotry, persecutions, inquisitions and holy wars.

Again, because there is no way to check, personal revelation could be wrong. And, obviously, it very often is, occasionally in very negative ways.

Conclusions without evidence are conclusions which could just as easily be completely wrong. There's no evidence, you can't tell anything about it, you can't make a determination if it is valid or not. That is why it creates error. It could be wrong. It very often is.

Why use that method? Especially when there is another, more reliable method which can be shown to work better?

Sometimes, yes...and sometimes we're wrong. Sometimes we don't know until we try. However, most people are perfectly willing to acknowledge that they can come to the wrong conclusion in their decisions as parents, and in fact often have.

Claiming that you can "just tell," by personal revelation, whether a prophet speaks for God or not, fails to acknowledge that personal revelation can be wrong.

So, the conclusions of people who tortured heretics in the Inquisition, based on their internal thought processes, originated from God?

You could say, well, obviously those conclusions didn't come from God. That was just bad people, who may have thought it was from God, but they were wrong.

Well, how can you tell that anyone's personal revelation is more valid than the personal revelation of the inquisitor? If you can't check, you don't know.

There is no reason to think that a "personal revelation" that such-and-such is a prophet, etc., is correct. It might not be. There is a lot of margin for error there.

Sudden decisions and uneasy feelings.

It's not usually very important either way.

However, claiming to be able to "just tell" that the Mormon religion is true, and that Joseph Smith was speaking for God, and that his proclamations were correct, is not a trivial conclusion to arrive at without evidence. There is a crapload of margin for error there. Comparison with reality has certainly not shown any correlation.

As you pointed out, people who believed on faith that the world was flat were wrong about it. Conclusions arrived at by personal revelation, or any kind of unevidenced conclusions, can just as easily be wrong and there is no way to tell.

Some conclusions arrived at even with evidence are wrong, especially on the frontiers of discovery. But the history of reason and evidence has clearly shown that they produce far more correspondence with reality than the alternative, as well as a great process for refinement.

So, why use the non-evidence method to determine the most important things - what this life is, and how to get by in it? Why entrust those incredibly important conclusions to a process which very often produces wrong answers?

Why not use the process which has been shown to produce accurate understanding of reality?

The only person not doing it is the one who claims to have knowledge about God.

I have no clue why you are doing it. Maybe you should stop.

You are the only one who needs an answer so bad right now that you are claiming one which is totally unsupported. You are the one making the claim.

Mormonism is true. JS is a prophet. What JS prophesied is true, and you can tell, by personal revelation.

If you want to stop needing answers right now, you are the one who needs to stop claiming that you have answers right now, which you can "just tell" are correct. You are the one who needs to stop claiming answers instead of saying "I don't know" when that is the truth. Saying "I don't know" is transcending the need for answers right now.

"Mormonism is true, JS was a prophet who spoke for God" is rushing through life...needing answers now...and getting nowhere fast.

Yes, that is what you need to do, instead of making unsupported claims.

This is not about "non-believers." It is about you.

Check! What claims look correct? What can be confirmed? That is how you find out.

Nobody is doing this. I am not even talking about God.

I am comparing your method of determining what is true - personal revelation, etc. - with the method of determining what is true that works - evidence-based reason. Your method is known to produce crap for truth and steer people mightily wrong. My question is, and has been, why do it?

Forget non-believers. If this method works, why isn't it working for the Hindus? Why, when a Hindu uses tests of faith, prayer, patience, grace, works, etc, doesn't he know spiritually that Mormonism is right, and that Christianity is right, and that he should forget the gods of his religion and put his faith in Jesus or he will not receive salvation?

Plenty of people are "us believers" every bit as much as you are. But they are not confirming your claims. Their personal revelation is telling them something very different. It is confirming to them a completely different set of claims.

If Hindus had more patience, would they know spiritually that Mormonism is true? Or will people's personal revelation confirm what they already believe is true?

No, you do not know this. You think it. You could be wrong.

I am sorry to hear that you feel this way.

How hard it must be, living in fear of a terrible monstrous demon lurking everywhere and interfering with your living as you should. That has got to suck.

Maybe not. This might not be true.

Please consider this possibility. The method you have used to make this determination is known to produce wrong answers.

Yeah, sure you do.

Too bad the Hindus don't have that capability, or the Shinto, Buddhists, etc, because they just haven't gotten the message that Mormonism is the true religion, that faith in Jesus is required for salvation, that Satan knows their weaknesses and is trying to keep them down, etc.

Then why in the world are you making one? Why are you claiming that Satan exists and haunts your steps when there is no case that He does? Why not slow it down and be patient, and wait until it there is a case before making one?

It's not about "winning." It's about the truth and what really works for finding it.

My question is, at what point do we say, "We don't care how 'happy' it makes you...you having that much money is hurting society."

When money is massively accumulated, there is a point when it becomes freely convertible to political power. This gives the super-wealthy men waaaay more than the one vote each they are entitled to as citizens of the society. They wield massive power and make decisions that affect millions, but they have no mandate.

Our founding fathers understood that power must be checked and balanced. At what point do we need to check financial power the way we check political power?

No more than the Magna Carta "hurt society" by requiring the monarch to accept that his will was not arbitrary. We decided centuries ago that unlimited power hurt society more than requiring checks on power.

In any case, checking financial power comes in many forms besides individual caps. Strong progressive taxation, public campaign financing and rescinding corporate personhood would be substantial checks on financial power.

Yet, 10% of the population controls 90% of the wealth. They are actively structuring the society for further accumulation and concentration of power, while the U.S. falls behind other nations in every measure of societal health. It's not working.

Many people are trying. However on a playing field this unlevel, "many" is not enough. It would have to be "most."

Ultimately I think it will be altered. As error correction kicks in, the moral arc of humanity bends towards social justice. However we may not live to see it.

Trial and error.

Trial and error precedes religion.

A lot of our activity seems immoral. Humans kill and rape neighboring humans all the time.

You are comparing how humans treat their in-group with how chimps treat their out-group.

Chimps have acceptable and unacceptable behaviors, and unacceptable behaviors are sometimes done anyway, just like humans. And like humans, there are very different standards of acceptable behavior for the in-group than for the out-group.

Humans are not less brutal to our enemies.

As our social groups grow larger and more complex, we must apply our in-group behaviors to larger numbers of people. And, humans have written language. This has allowed us to codify our trial and error and...slowly...learn from mistakes in a way that chimps cannot.

But, our trials - and errors - are far from over.

That's quite a turn around. First we are much more moral than chimps, and now we are much less.

Clearly, your original suggestion, that we are somehow endowed with morals that chimps don't share, is incorrect. Our basic behaviors are very similar.

Well then, obviously, so is "religion."

The point is, there is no reason to think we are getting superior morality from some source different from where chimps are getting it. Animal behaviors - including ours - arise evolutionally, from what works, over the very long run. For millions of years, our behavior patterns - kindness to our in-group, brutality to our out-groups and rivals - have been successful strategies for maintaining small group cohesion while allowing the strongest to triumph in the gene pool.

In evolutionary terms, we are no more than an eyeblink away from our tribal ancestors. Written language and mass killing technology are brand-new inventions. Our technical abilities may have allowed us to inch a tiny bit forward in some very narrow respects - for example, in inventing rule of law and democracy - but we have barely even begun to implement them. As I said, our trials, and errors, continue. There is no guarantee we will survive them.

I understand, but if people are so easily offended by questioning, how can we ever discuss it? Getting offended ends the conversation.

So we are left with a gigantic elephant in the room. Christianity - historically, and currently - has a lot of shortcomings. Not the least of which is, it doesn't seem to be true. Having it as a dominant force in our society is causing big problems.

I am not trying to suggest that any person who practices Christianity is an asshole, or anything negative. But the problems of Christianity need to be addressed. That's not Christian-bashing. It is trying to find a way to solve problems that effect everyone.

No, the problem with Christianity is its tenets. They do not seem to be true. They are irrational, unsubstantiated, and have little apparent touch on anything that is real or matters. They appear to be a mythology, no different from the mythologies of other cultures.

The result of trying to live as if mythology is true is mass unreason. That is the problem.

The claim that humans require salvation from the messiah who was born of a virgin and died for their sins or else they will be eternally separated from God in the afterlife represents Christianity.

Unfortunately, this claim appears to be a mythology, no different from the claim that you must worship Sri Krishna for a favorable incarnation because only He can intervene in your karma, or that sacrificing a horn of ale to Freya can entice Her to increase your fertility.

There is no reason to think the local mythology is truer than the ones of humans in other places.

Acting like mythology is true creates a huge disconnect between what people say and how things actually are. This disconnect is creating a lot of error. Acting like "our" mythology is truer than "theirs" is fostering a huge amount of ingroup / outgroup division. This is creating a lot of unresolvable conflict. That's the problem.

Saying this is not Christian-bashing. It needs to be said. Unless people are willing to challenge the ordering of our society around an apparent mythology, there will be no way to get any realer.

I said, it appears to be one. Whether it is or not, the fact that it appears to be a mythology is causing a massive amount of problems for society.

It's not a matter of opinion. You can check.

I think that after they pay a lot of taxes on their income, and after every kid has a real house, then they can buy whatever they want for their kid with what is left over. It's like Thanksgiving - everybody needs to have firsts before people have seconds.

So people can't hoard gigantic piles of food they will never eat in their garage while children outside starve? Yes. That would be immoral. The children are more important than their desire to hoard.

The fact that some children are homeless in the midst of such prosperity is unconscionable. It would take only crumbs from a rich table to fix that. If they don't have enough money left over for a $100,000.00 playhouse after they pay their share in taxes, Tom Cruise can make another movie. Or they can get a cheaper playhouse.

People can do whatever they want with what is left after their obligations have been met. Part of their obligation - like all of ours - is to do what we can to keep our society running and take care of the needs of the people, especially the children, in our society.

If he is an American, he is paying far less in taxes today than rich Americans have ever paid. If we instituted tax rates that worked for America in previous years, then I would agree he had paid his share. Right now, the rich are slacking on their share of the taxes, and using the great power of their wealth to make their taxes even lower.

It would cause the rich no harm at all to pay their share of the expenses to keep this country working. They are getting all the benefits of living in a society where they can become rich, but they don't want to keep the society going if it cuts into their extreme playhouse budget?

That is hoarding. It is immoral, and it is destroying the economy and causing a great deal of suffering, especially to children. Ultimately it will fail them also - if the economy is destroyed by hoarding, the money disappears, just like it did during the financial crisis. Everybody loses.

Better to have higher taxes on the people who can afford it with no suffering. Everbody wins.

That is what the billionaires are doing. That money never even gets spent, it just gets passed back and forth in bizarre banking schemes which magically make the numbers go up with every pass. That's why it disappears when they wreck the economy - it never existed to begin with.

Tom Cruise, with his paltry millions, isn't in that scale of hoarding, true. But he could afford a tax increase from 35% to 39% - a repeal of the Bush tax cuts - and economists say that would really help the economy and the country as a whole. If he had to have ten less square feet on his extreme playhouse because of that 4%, I can't see how that would be in any way unfair to him.

I'm glad we agree. So, to back to your original question:

"So people who have extra income can't spend money on nice things until no one is homeless anymore?"

The answer is, yes, that would be the moral way to handle it. We as a society need to make the tax structure so that the portion which cares for homeless children is taken out before it gets counted as "extra income" for the very rich. When the tax structure is sufficient to do what is best for the society - helping children - then they can spend their brains out with whatever is left. Everybody gets firsts before anybody gets seconds.

Trying to disrupt the bone-rattling is not pointless.

Wrong. It is an attempt to use a public forum to broadcast a very important and under-represented view.

The Abrahamic Faiths do not seem to be true. They are incompatible with reality. Trying to run society based on bronze-age taboos and superstition is killing us. Every single opportunity to confront this issue is an opportunity for minds to be changed, for the seeds of questioning to be planted. Our entire society, the whole world, needs a massive open dialog on this subject. We are long overdue. So, failing to attention-whore it would be far worse.

Additionally, placing this billboard has several specific points.

1. To let atheists know that non-belief is okay, and they are not alone. Many atheists in those parts of the country are in the closet, unable to be honest about their doubts because of strong pressure from family and church communities. The billboards are specifically targeting this audience, to let them know non-belief is an acceptable and viable viewpoint.

2. To negate atheist stereotypes, particularly that giving up theism would somehow mean giving up Christmas celebrations.

3.To draw attention to the secular nature of modern Christmas, and the fact that most of what we associate with Christmas - trees, Santa, caroling, yule logs, mistletoe, etc - have nothing to do with Christianity. The season belongs to everyone.

4. To emphasize that morality and goodness come from humans and are not supernaturally-based.

5. To expose everyone to the fact that Christianity is being called into question and endless options abound.

This needs to be said, where people can hear it. That is the point.

Atheists are also establishing interest groups which meet once a week to attend uplifting services with music, and form the bonds of community. Is it ironic - or hypocritical - for them to do things that religions do, if they are against religion?

I don't think so. Religion figured out some very effective techniques for building communities and getting their message out. The communities and the advertising techniques are part of the success of Christianity but they were never really the part that atheists find disagreeable. The problematic part of Christianity is the content.

Well, you will have to take that up with someone who is saying it. I'm not. I think trying to spread ideas is perfectly natural and getting together with others to talk about ideas is fun.

Now this I disagree with and I will explain why. First of all, if the presence of billboards and persuasion are what make a religion, then McDonald's would be the biggest religion on the highway, and they're not.

Secondly, atheism is not even a thought system, it is simply a rejection of theism. If you would like to refer to the actual religion-like systems which are being constructed, they are often called secular humanism.

Thirdly, secular humanism may be a religion or become one, but so what? Just being a religion is not the problem. What is the content of the religion? That is what matters.

However those are not really the main reasons to suggest that "atheism is a religion," are they? This is: "...[atheism is as] dependent on faith and belief as any other religion."

And that is really incorrect. Atheism does not propose anything supernatural. Atheism is not pretending to know any "facts" about gods, or about the afterlife, or about what humans have to do to get a good afterlife, or about what day of the week the gods want humans to take off, or any other proposal which somebody said a long time ago and now has to be "believed" because there is no other reason to think it. A-theism is simply a non-acceptance of the proposal of theism.

Since there are no supernatural posits to atheism, there is nothing that must be taken on faith and believed. Faith is required only for supernaturalism. As for secular humanism, it is founded on principles that humans can work together to create an amazing existence for humans. Also not a supernatural posit requiring belief. It is a proposal about real things which can be tested, and it is being tested.

That is the difference, and it is all the difference in the world. Christianity, the Abrahamic Faiths and theism do not seem to be true. There is no accuracy that can be demonstrated between the claims and observable reality. A-theism accurately points out that the claims cannot be established. Faith not required.

That is why the content is much more important than whether a system qualifies as a "religion" or not. The question is not, "Are these ideas a religion, therefore bad?" It is, "Are these ideas sound and can they be verified?" A religion based on sound ideas which can be verified could be fun.

Unless there is some kind of physical evidence of this, I'd be reluctant to walk too far down this road. I have seen some interesting and unexpected changes of mind occur, in debate and elsewhere. I would not want to be just as guilty of precluding understanding as those who insist I am incapable of apprehending X without "faith."

Some debate about this seems useless but I'm not sure that is the reason. People who can use language seem to be awake enough to have will. I would not want to assume that any person had less will or capability than I do.

I'd like to think it is a matter of finding leverage points at which to insert reason. Sometimes that works. However I admit that after a decade of online religious debate I have not found very many leverage points. In fact I have barely had any effect at all. But, my approach has changed again and again as I have seen what works and what doesn't, and I still hope to someday find a way to communicate my understanding to anyone. It seems important. It's worth a try.

Maybe. Maybe not. I don't think you or anyone knows. However I have seen some pretty amazing changes even from people who could not have imagined it.

If you don't know, there is no point in jumping to conclusions. I would say it is more compassionate to give people the benefit of the doubt.

You are a person according another person with basic human equality. Even if they are "incapable" of understanding, treating anyone as if they aren't, at the risk of being wrong, would be an affront.

Anyway, you don't have engage anyone. If you don't want to, don't. But if you care about reason and the future of humanity, what other option is there?

When in doubt, err on the side of equality and compassion.

I know non-believers who also "hear" and "feel" things which sound a lot like the things people attribute to God. I don't think "hearing" and "feeling" things which seem divine represent a delusion. You could put on the God helmet and electrically stimulate the right temporal lobe, and in all likelihood you would "hear" and "feel" a Presence, an incredible sense of benevolence, a feeling of one with everything, etc. Any human can have these feelings and they seem to be within the normal range of human experience.

Attributing the feelings to "god", however, is not necessary and many people don't.

I don't think religion or "cultural delusions" should have a free pass, and I am not even saying it is not a disorder. I am questioning only the idea that some people have a "hard-wired" or "physical" incapacity for understanding, without evidence that this is certainly the case.

I have seen people become capable of understanding more than I - or they - ever dreamed they could. I have seen people emerge from delusion. Since change is possible, I wouldn't be quick to accept that some views are "hard-wired."

Of course they can. Anyone can argue anything. But that is what makes evidence-based understanding so valuable. It's not just "he-said, she-said" when examining which types of claims represent better understanding. By accurate correspondence to reality, some claims actually fit the criteria for reason and wise action, and others don't.

In the world of online religious debate, you seem a bastion of calm. I find your clear, patient discussion an antidote to hysteria.

I think wisdom can only come from respecting the truth. Otherwise it is folly.

Examine reality.

Truth is not determined by clicks in your head. It is determined by accuracy in describing reality.

It is before you. It is determined by examining it. What do you see?

That is not reality, that is opinion. You have to start looking at something besides what people think. You have to look at what actually is.

No, reality is the stuff that is still here when the eye and the beholder go away.

No, actually it's "beauty." If there is one thing that isn't in the eye of the beholder, it's truth.

There is no evidence of this. The evidence suggests that there is a manifest reality in which we are immersed, which we can examine and make determinations about that apply to everyone.

For example, we seem to be living beings, on a very large mass, circling an extremely large mass. Our perceptions of it may vary in slight ways. But if you are able to, say, travel to another city by airplane, you share enough perception of space and time in common with other humans to accomplish a very complex task. Since humans do this every day, I would say our personal perceptions of space and time and matter and energy are not sufficiently different to conclude that reality is dependent upon what we think of it.

Our perceptions appear to be of something. The Something is what you have to examine to find out which statements about it are true.

How can you tell?

That is exactly what I am asking you to do.

Let's find out.

Nobody is defending jihad, how stupid. Some people have been saying that Christianity isn't violent, implying that this is how you can tell it is a better religion.

Christianity has had to live alongside the Enlightenment for the last 300 years. That is why it is not as bad as Islam (anymore.) It's not inherently better. It is less dangerous now because it has been weakened.

There is no doubt, Islam is an insane religion at the height of its power without any checks in the society. Christianity is also an insane religion, but its power is long on the wane and there are many checks and balances on it in our society. That's why it used to be just as bad, but isn't now.

You are confused. "The Enlightenment" refers to the slow adoption of reason in the west, beginning with the Renaissance and culminating in the founding of the United States. The principal goals of Enlightenment thinkers were liberty, progress, reason, tolerance, and ending the abuses of the church and state. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were Enlightenment thinkers.

The Enlightenment was marked by increasing empiricism and scientific rigor, along with increased questioning of religious orthodoxy. Being separated to a large degree from western culture, Islam has not had to live alongside empiricism and scientific rigor or increased questioning of religious orthodoxy. That is why they are now like Christianity was before.

I hope that clears things up. It's not really related to the Buddhist concept of enlightenment at all. (Though, you would be hard pressed to find a list of ten acts of violence in the name of the Buddha in the last 2,500 years.)

I didn't say it was unheard of, but it's really reaching to suggest that any of these are in the name of Buddhism. But even supposing it was, it just proves the point - religion is dangerous wherever it is very powerful.

Right now Christianity is weak in the west and getting weaker. Islam is extremely strong and gaining in power in the ME. That is why Christianity is only a little dangerous right now but Islam is very dangerous. The danger is related to the strength and proximity to power - not to the doctrines.

Anywhere religion is unchecked it creates atrocity.

The Abrahamic Faiths are incompatible with reality. They make no more sense than sacrificing a goat to the oracle at Delphi.

But, they have been foundational to several civilizations including the current ones. So it will take awhile for them to wear off. In the meantime, the vast distance between what they are claiming, and the reality, is what is creating all these problems.

The best thing we can do is stay calm and simply continue to point to reality. It is undeniable, because it is what it is. Eventually the link between getting reality, and making incredible things work, will demonstrate the efficacy of real understanding.

I disagree that the "more bad than good" of organized religion is due to the people who use it, abuse it. A lot of bad comes from the legacy religions because they are bad systems. Pretending to know things about the supernatural and the afterlife doesn't work.

The Abrahamic Faiths are mutually exclusive, to each other and to reality. Things aren't like how the tribemen from thousands of years ago thought. It's time we quit pretending that they knew anything about the world or the gods, and base our understanding of reality, the universe and morality on real stuff now.