Dear David,

Evidence is only... evidence.
It can tell you what is and isn't there, answer factual questions such as "where", "when" and "how".

But if cannot answer the most important question of all: "Why".

Evidence has no say about what's good and what's bad, what's right and what's wrong, what should be valued and what devalued.

While evidence continues to discover the elementary particles and their relationships, the latest being the Higgs particle, no 'value' particle was ever discovered, no particle of 'importance', no particle of 'significance', no particle of 'worthiness".

That you choose to base your life on evidence is thus a delusion, because evidence tells you nothing about how you should live.

What most atheists who claim to be rational do, is to subconsciously sanctify their instinctual urges, then use logic and evidence to work out how those urges can best be fulfilled.

However, their choice to assign importance, significance or value to their instinctual urges is as irrational and arbitrary as any other assignment of importance.

In the long run, the sanctification of instinctual urges only results in disappointment and pain, because the instinctual urges can only be satisfied partially and temporarily, and even when satisfied, the anxiety about the possibility of failing to fulfil them always lingers in the background.

Humans are still primitive, irrational, barbaric creatures - and the wars they fight in the service of their instincts only demonstrates that point, regardless what other 'holy' excuses they make to cover those instincts.

Fortunately, WE are not humans. Fortunately, with the power of discrimination we are able to work that out and endeavour to gradually shake off that identification with the human body, its instincts and its mind which developed around those instincts.

Belief in the existence of God is one among many valuable practices that helps us do that - to de-identify ourselves from our body and its instincts.
If you are an atheist, then you are missing on that particularly useful tool, but the least you should do if you are a decent person, is to avoid spoiling the same for others.

"Belief in the existence of God is one among many valuable practices that helps us do that - to de-identify ourselves from our body and its instincts."

I disagree. There is strong evidence that the religious impulse and belief in God is an adaptive mechanism which has up to now enabled humans as self-aware, conscious entities to survive. Google the "God-Spot".

Religion as its base, and is there any other kind, is an uber form of tribalism where membership is through the initiation of belief and acceptance of the high authority of God as interpreted by self-appointed priests.

The religious impulse is biological and fundamentally anti-intellectual; it reduces individuality to the prescribed doctrinal place. It is the antithesis of individual rights based societies; it is also a manifestation of the hold nature still has on humanity.

When something like Islam comes along which is also in perpetual inner conflict with itself we have a form of human society which is the mirror image of natural selection; that is kill or be killed.

In a way Islam is the last gasp of nature attempting to reclaim mankind; to invest it with the usual mystic clap-trap of religion as something above nature is a particularly pungent form of self-delusion.

Dear Cohenite,

I suspect that nothing can stop the hold of nature over humanity, but what we can achieve instead, with God's grace, is to stop our identification as humans. So long as we share this common goal, then it is worthwhile to study which techniques and teachings help us towards it and which do not.

So the interesting question at hand is, whether or not the technique of believing in God's existence is helpful in the pursuit of de-identification with one's body/mind (which in turn brings us closer to God). Another way to state this question, is whether or not believing in God's existence is indeed religious.

You and I have seemingly, for better or worse, ventured too far beyond the point where this particular religious technique of believing in God's existence can be of help, thus we need other and more-advanced techniques.

I agree that this technique can easily be abused by corrupt leaders, themselves non-believers, who may use it over the masses for irreligious purposes. I also agree that wherever that is the case, people are better off without this belief.

Yet, I think that in most cases, believing in God's existence (however self-contradictory), when untempered by corruption and fear-mongering, does help the young, the simpleton and the morally-weak. It is especially valuable in countering the arrogant belief that "we have created ourselves".

That this technique may also happen to increase survival rates (thus is genetically-supported to one extent or another) and in some cases benefit society, is incidental.

The Islam to which you refer is not a religion, but tribalism. However, most practices of Islam, such as the fast of Ramadhan, abstaining from alcohol and sexual-misconduct, giving charity, prayer, dedicating the time to go on pilgrimage, etc. are religiously beneficial. Some people are unable to practice these without the support of believing that God exists, hence for them I think, this is a valuable incentive.

strangely enough the left wing god deniers habitually blaspheme the name of Jesus. I am sure it must be part of the ABC/SBS charter. Never once heard Mohammed name used in vain. It seems that any vilification laws only ever apply to faiths outside of the Christian one. Maybe the blashemers are just showing how gutless they are.

Yuyutsu,
The happiest, safest, most socially considerate populations in the world are found in Northern Europe. On 28 November the new York Times published a chart showing the results of a German study of the 31 OECD countries. The first six places were Iceland, the Scandinavian Countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland) and The Netherlands. Finland was disadvantaged by the scoring system because children are allowed to play until aged seven but they then get the best education results in the world. Not one of those countries is religious and are not interested in your why question. They are too busy making the best of the one life they have.

When religions held power we atheists could be murdered for not believing. Now religious people whinge when a person laughs about the gullibility of their followers. In the past we had to risk our lives to think, the religious now have to absorb some ridicule because you don't or can't think. The NY Times article is at;
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/opinion/blow-americas-exploding-pipe-dream.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

On a Q & A Gerrard Henderson told catherine Devaney that although she could criticise Tony Abbots catholisim she had better not try that on islam. That was never to be repeated by the craven and islam preferring ABC.
Burnside is power mad. Bad enough his brothers in law steal and molest children without Julian concerning himself. Still he has to try and oppress us.
Religeonists can believe all the rubbish they want but afford me the same right Burnside! I would have liked to finish with a profanity here.