Shion

I hate to be sexist sounding here, but I think females have more of a tendency towards spiritual practices and religion, because of their nature biologically. Females carry and give birth to babies, after the invasive practice of penetrative sex, and for many, many years this whole process could not be explained by knowledge of the body. So females probably developed both a social network and a need to trust outsiders as a means for survival. Most ancient cultures reinforced this subconscious tendency by providing the majority if not all the services women required for their reproductive health. Although Christianity and the other Abrahamic faiths tolerate bringing legitimate babies into the world. The social network was still very much needed by women prior to modern medicine to make sure they were taken care of through pregnancy and if they should perish in the birth that another female would feed the infant and care for it. This was compounded up until the twentieth century from the lack of education for females. And although hospitals took over the birthing process over midwives, the Victorian ideal of the woman being the moral center of the home remained untouched until the late 1960s. The right to vote really had to no effect on female belief, since many of the groups that were for the woman's vote were in fact religious institutions. That's my two cents on the matter.

I'm a female atheist, and I might go even so far as to say I am an anti-theist.

Easter is always the wannabe Christmas.

We are born into a world where we can observe the death of all living things in their own ways and in their own time. I don't believe knowing about the 100% death forecast can be equated to the self fulfilling prophecy. We don't have to conceptualize this to be true. Bacteria that have no consciousness come in and out of existence without having a concept of what that is. It is a naturally occurring phenomenon and a rather necessary one. If people didn't die, we would have no need to create more people. No new people, the ideas stagnant after awhile. I think of death as a good thing, although I am not looking for the day I will switch off, I can accept it as such.

Ok, I haven't read Becker's book. Wikipedia's article was somewhat lacking in detail. So I will move on from that point. Buddhism seeks to transcend the mind from 'suffering.' Death really doesn't 'cause' suffering, but the feeling of loss on the part of the living that does, or even the fear of it as an individual or as a group. And suffering could be caused by all types of things in life that make death look like a picnic. So what is suffering? Biologically it is a pain response to our environment, developed to keep our mass of replicating cells out of danger. On an emotional scale, pain is a teaching tool. So here comes in the massive systems of duality: pain not good, pleasure good. But much like the sheep in "Animal Farm" our cultural systems have taught us some rather degrading habits in response to this and the only ones that profit are the organizations themselves. Out of our western culture the disillusionment at the end of the 19th century with Christianity caused very diverse philosophies to emerge, some championing human strength and grace, and others saying all 'life is grey and when it isn't grey it is brown.' Any one of these philosophies or spiritual practices can be imprinted on a mind, as the 'cultural viewpoint,' but since we are all the same species (same hardware) these philosophies and religions boil down to relatively the same things (archetypes and hero stories). Either be good to the group and the group will be good to you or screw the group and conquer the world on your own terms. Even the screw the world crowd has created a counter archetype system of their own (the rebel, the antihero, the vampire). As for immortality, it is a loosing battle as far as science knows. The pyramids will one day be dust, our sun will one day die, our world taken with the sun, and even galaxies can collide or collapse. Nothing is known. But I am not going to say from this, from a social standpoint that everything is permitted or that finding immortality will somehow rid humanity of its contradictions and fears. [i might have totally missed the point legion, but this is what I thought}.

A little off topic, but isn't Set evil? I mean he butchers his brother(Wesir/Osiris) at a party so he can steal a throne in front of his sisters and wife. How is that any better than worshiping Yahweh? (I'm not trying to start a fight, I'm just looking for clarification.)

I don't care if May 21 is judgment day as long as I get to see the new Pirates movie before hand, it can rain fire for all I care.

Great post and far too true. I have met people who literally believe that __________ deity/demigod spoke personally to them, and it is impossible to have a logical conversation with them. They usually carry such beliefs and experiences to the grave. But good on Dawkins for having the conviction to stand up with the truth rather than pander to these people out of pity.

From Within It Haunts Us Gray grime slathers me, From within my mind it seeps. Guilt, uncertainty, pride

I always heard this part explained as a spiritual resurrection of the jews who had passed before into the kingdom of god. But wandering zombies is just too hilarious

Personally of the biblical figures, I didn't see David as all that bad. He rules like a typical monarch of that time period. And the psalms as far as their beauty and wisdom are highly overrated. Most of them are knock offs of Sumerian, Egyptian and Babylonian texts just with God singular being replaced with the more colorful local deities of those cultures. There are uncanny similarities between the Psalms and the Hymns to Aten/Aton (varies by translation) for example. And a lot of the stories read like fables, King David was usually a good, powerful, wise king, and then one day got the hots for the neighbor lady. He thought, "I'm King, so I should have all the hot, skanky ass I want." So he had her husband killed and road her like a very naughty horse. But of course, this would not give a proper lesson and so he had to be punished...by murdering his son? Well it isn't like the rest of the bible is much different in it's ideas of justice. Pharaoh was a very, very, very bad man, so god killed all the first born after torturing all the humans and animals in the region with various plagues. God didn't like a really tall tower, so he blew it up and scrambled brains. And of course, Jesus was walking around, pissed off, and struck down a fig tree. Seriously I think we learned more from Aesop.