Have you ever read this book?
It's a nifty little book. It's supposed to be a collection of stuff that you never learned, but you should have.
One section of the book deals with philosophy. And within that section is a little bit about the big brain busters (Zeno's Arrow paradox)

One of them is Pascal's wager, the book , IMHO, took a little dip.
But then I thought, "A lot of people who use Pascal's wager don't even know it exists, so letting them know this idea isn't original and has been refuted is a good deterrent against future abusers of the wager".

I read the whole article, not one point raised against it.

I was just kicked out of my toastmasters club because I gave a speech about the superstitious religious beliefs that cause neurosis. I have emails from the group leader basically hate mail! He is fighting for his neurosis and losing very much so. I don't give a fuck what others think of me because unlike their unfounded beliefs they hold to have their(gods) approval all the time so they can accept themselves when others don't. Their sickness is due to their needy attitudes towards approval etc...I wanted to open my own non-profit org supporting rational view and "bashing the fuck" out of unscientific and unpragmatic view with the opposite. I am writing a book now on the it. Let me join your team! I want to meet you and can fly out to meet you breakfast lunch or dinner lol you name it

So I just moved and thus had to leave the therapist I've been seeing for a year. I started seeing a new therapist last week and I thought she was awesome. Well, I had my second appointment with her today, and I still think she is awesome. But there is one thing that's not so awesome...

She was asking me more questions about my background (what is your relationship with your parents like? any trauma in your past? etc etc) and then she asks....well, it went like this:

Therapist: And what about your religious background?

Me: I don't really have one.

Therapist: What do you mean? That you never went to church or anything?

I had the unfortunate pleasure of watching the news the other night. You see, I don't enjoy watching the news and it's not for the reasons you probably suspect. It's not that the bad news is the problem, the world sucks and there is lots of bad news out there if you insist on wanting to hear about it. No, I don't watch the news because I am of the firm belief that the word "media" is simply simple way of saying "money grubbing, panic inciting, idiocy spreading propagandist".

At any rate, I was listening to these hacks talk about nonsense and they started taking about this story of parents and their child raising tactics. Now, this was a pretty extreme story so naturally it caught my attention. This mom and dad were apparently having sex and masturbating in front of their 8 or 9 (I can't remember) year old kid.

I was chatting with a friend of mine and he brought up some points that I think are pretty interesting. We were talking about how we were raised in regard to religious preference.

I have been what most consider to be an atheist since my early teens. My mother struggled with her faith all of my life, so I was never propperly indoctrinated into a particular set of beliefs. This left me sort of in limbo, dangling just outside the realm of faith but with no ideological structure to turn too.

I made a friend who was passionately atheist, anarchist, racist, you name it. He was a powerful figure. I was old enough to realize that his racism was not any good and that anarchism is a complicated issue... but he was unabashedly atheist. Now that was pretty exciting! I did not really learn to have much of an opinion about the topic of religion until years later, but I had already learned that I should not believe everything I hear. I was a skeptic.

The Virginia shootings are tragic, this is undeniable. People are so fricken nuts; it's amazing.

So, what do we do now?

We pray.

Huh?

That's right, we pray.

But why?

Because we need Gods help now more than ever.

Woh woh woh, hang on there sport. God? The same guy that had absolutely no power to stop the tragedy in the first place?

Yeh, him.

The guy that knows everything, the guy that knew this was going to happen and just let it? That sadistic prick?

Yep.

But...won't he just ignore you now also? I mean, if this dick ever had the power to grant wishes he sure has been pretty lax lately. Yunno, natural disasters, disease outbreaks, wars all over the world etc.

I keep hearing "but why are you guys trying so hard to end religion?" and "why do you hate Jesus so much?". I've seen this in each and every interview with all outspoken atheists. Do a search online and see if you can find an interview with an atheist in which these questions do not come up.

I don't hate Jesus and neither does anyone with the RSS or any other free thinking human that has half of a brain. How could we possibly hate something that is not real? What opinion would even be worthwhile about an imaginary idea? If someone were trying to argue with me that Lord of the Rings was true and that there is some alternate dimension in which these events took place I would not suddenly HATE Gandalf. Gandalf isn't real ... the issue is the assertion that he is. The only people that have a feeling about imaginary beings are the ones which believe they have some relevance.

It's funny that whether we are religious or athiest, it's our belief system that makes us superior to the other.

I think whoever has the most money and women should win.

This is a REAL "blog" entry.
2 weird things happened today, both had to do with religion and atheism.

First one: I went to the local independent book store. This girl was there, and she's really, REALLY cute. So she asks "can I help you?" I say "yeah, I'm looking for 'The End of Faith' by Sam Harris, and I can't seem to find it in "religion". Do you have it in another section?" "Yeah!" (much more enthusiastic than she normally is to me) and goes and finds it. I decide to get that book, and order in another copy, as one copy is going to my youngest brother for his birthday. We then talked a bit about the book. She asked "have you read it?" and I said

I'm not really surprised, but it seems one of the most religious developed nations is also frighteningly ignorant of what they believe.

Links to digg:
http://digg.com/politics/Americans_believe_in_religion_but_know_little_about_it

A very interesting article from the Washington Post exposes the obvious fact that people who are ignorant of religion are more prone to believe in a religion. The abundant un-knowing in such a large population reminds me of the Catholic Church only allowing the bible to be in Latin during the Middle Ages.

It's very easy to manipulate people if you keep them ignorant of something that they believe can cause them eternal pain. They will come back to you since they think you're the only one who can keep them safe.