This article, while I agree with the underlying premise of atheism, is not well argued and is unconvincing. It contains assertions not backed up by fact. It jumps from topic to topic and concludes from this smattering of "facts" that all religions produce cataclysm.

This is simply untrue. I have a materialist view of the collapse of societies, one that I think better explains their failure than blaming religion. indeed I think this concentration on religion as the root of all evil is actually a dead end for analysis, since religion is a product of the human brain and the society in which people find themselves. It makes more sense to analyse those societies and their class relations than to separate out an artifical construct like religion unsullied by its environment.

From the article “Religions promote elitism, xenophobia, intolerance, ignorance and fascism (n. a governmental system with strong centralised power, permitting no opposition or criticism, controlling all affairs, etc.).
Religions encourage slavery, torture, murder, and unquestioning obedience to rulers, i.e. the church.”

Yep

That is organized religion, maintain the status quo, deny change and human evolution.

The thing which amazes me is how far from Christian values religious organisations and institutions are.

Somehow I can never imagine Jesus sitting peacefully in the company of a Jesuit, Cardinal, Pope or Bishop.

The authority versus the humanity would be in eternal conflict.

Martin Ibn Warriq “Is OLO happy with the inevitable intelligent comment going elsewhere?”

Sounds like another of those who believe that heretics must be being silenced (like Chris Hamilton)

Mind you Martin, you are fond of calling the majority of the population “fools” in one recent abortion debate.

Carl – The only reason it is possible to (quite rightly) criticize hypocritical behaviour by professing Christians is because Christians claim to have an identifiable standard of morality against which they can be measured.

The same is not true for an atheist. There are no absolute, objective moral standards in a godless universe and so in a very real way atheists can never be hypocrites. Atheists are free to make up their own standards and change them whenever it suits them.

You say: “we must find ways to interact, not just peacefully, but co-operatively for the benefit of ourselves and our progeny.” You may think these are noble sentiments that you have decided upon but who are you to say what we “must” be doing? What do you say to a fellow atheist who says that he/she doesn’t care about working cooperatively for the benefit of others, but just wants to have as good a time as he/she possibly can before they die and go into oblivion? Would you set yourself up as some sort of secular “pope” and say they would be wrong to live that way?

You are quite right to point out the gross inconsistencies evident in the practices of some professing Christians – but that is meaningful only if absolute, objective standards exist. Under atheism though morality is completely subjective and relative. No one is in a position to make any meaningful comment on the rightness or wrongness of any behaviour. Thus if your belief that there is no God is correct your article is valueless.

Of course people can choose to group together to force their preferences on others who disagree but that is to rely on might and not on moral conviction

Thanks Carl - your article is a bit vituperative but I can't say I blame you, Christianity is so SILLY! It's hard not to get a bit hot under the collar when you look at it.

I remember a poor young lady I saw a few years ago nearly in tears at the idea that God so loved the world that he sent his only son who then got killed. Imagine that, his only son - how much he must have loved us!

OMG how stupid is that, I mean God is supposedly all-powerful and can have as many sons as he (she?) wants. And didn't JC go back to heaven anyway? Maybe God was using contraceptives which is why he (she?) only had one child.

It goes on and on and is just so basically crazy that you wonder how it can possibly have survived through to the 21st century. The trouble is the human intellect seems not to have developed in pace with the technology we have, so we keep on adhering to primitive belief systems of early agricultural societies in the middle east well after their use-by date has come and gone.

I could go on (e.g. all the contradictions in the bible) but maybe that's enough of a rant.

Am I intolerant? Maybe - of course people should be free to believe whatever nonsense they want, but I can't see why they should get taxpayer support. I wish some political party would propose abolishing all tax breaks for supernatural belief systems. It beggars belief that these parasites continue to pay no land tax, rates, income tax etc etc... needs to be swept away immediately.

This piece is so badly written, it has to be a set-up.

If I were a Christian, this is the kind of article I would write, simply so that I could throw mud at it and say "well, if that's the best you atheists can produce, just yah boo sucks to you all."

It makes no allowance for the fact that mankind has only had the tools to see through the "it must be magic" veil for the last couple of hundred years. For the millennia before that, the vastness of human ignorance was bound to breed superstition.

What is more natural, when observing the sun rising in the east and setting in the West, than to insist that it was Helios' chariot, pulled by four horses, Pyrios, Aeos, Aethon, and Phlegon, that drove it across the sky?

But simply listing a set of superficial grievances against religion from a position of some weakness ("I have a made a point in reading up on others and have discussed religious ideas with followers of Islam and Buddhism..." Wow) does nothing more than illustrate a shallowness of thought, and leave the author - rightly - open to some derision.

Unfortunately, it is then an easy target for the religious posters, which does the non-religious position no good at all.

If that is not enough, the tone of voice is one long sneer.

"To be perfectly honest, religions disgust me and I'm constantly amazed on meeting otherwise intelligent people, especially university graduates, who have been taught critical thinking, who have this blind spot of idiocy."

Nope. It has to be a stalking horse, neatly inserted by some seminary undergraduates for a laugh.

Does the Pope have an Internet connection, I wonder? Just the sort of thing to while away a boring afternoon in Kenthurst.

Pericles you are a hard one to follow. Of course it is understandable that people will develop and adhere to superstitious beliefs in a society where mankind doesn't have the tools to see through the "it must be magic" veil.

But how much allowance do you want? Surely 200 years is enough to relegate the flimsy superstitions of Christianity to the dustbin where they belong.

Instead of which we have the absurd spectacle of "World Youth Day" (the title is so pretentious - what world, what youth, what day) with poor brainwashed children rambling around in their confusion shouting jesus jesus jesus oi oi oi as if it was the Olympics - AND a supposedly educated Prime Minister giving the whole thing the thumbs up.

Let's get it straight, we DO now have the tools to see through the magic veil and it is high time we used those tools. Christianity is a load of superstitious man-made hogwash propagated by power-tripping brain-damaged cross-dressing child molesters who can never, when you ask them, provide a shred of evidence for their outrageous claims.

In case you take exception to the child molesters bit, I mean (mainly) psychological molestation - anyone who brainwashes a child to believe in one religion in preference to another is certainly doing them no favours - a healthier approach would be to give all children a measured exposure to all religious and non-religious thought.

We have the insane spectacle of people like George Buish praying for an intercessionary god to come in and stop floods, droughts, tsunamis, earthquakes as if there is any possibility of god even being able to change the traffic lights. And of a "cardinal" (read thinly-veiled witch doctor) telling us all to have more children, as if the world is not already overpopulated.

It's time we grew up and 200 years is enough!

Aaarrrgh, I'm going to say it, the tooth fairy doesn't exist! Nor does Santa Claus. How can we be moral without those two?