Are blacks Christians just because whites forced them to believe in Christianity when we brought them here?

I know they had three different religions back then (Ibo, Ashanti, and Yoruba) before we forced our beliefs upon them.

Please enlighten me on this peeps.

A question to god-believers (and I'm genuinely interested in the answer you give).

If a definitive incontrovertible proof should force you to abandon your belief in a deity what do you reckon you would lack which you presently have? (Or more importantly "miss"?).

I ask as a person who only experiences huge benefit from a rational conviction that your blind faith in other people's wild assertions is actually a handicap to achieving happiness, happiness being a concept I closely identify with the superiority of knowledge over assumption. Personally, I experience proofs daily that the reversal of this stance leads to terrible problems for the individual bordering sometimes on psychiatric illness in its effect and intensity. I promise not to gainsay or treat with disrespect your assertions - I am really curious as to what they are founded on.

This is your brain on religion

Believers record lower levels of anxiety, which can boost performance but also hinder the ability to fix mistakes, study finds

OMAR EL AKKAD

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

March 5, 2009 at 4:03 AM EST

A group of Toronto scientists have found God - or at least the effect God has on a believer's brain.

Newly published research by University of Toronto and York University professors points to reduced stress and anxiety among test subjects who consider themselves to be religious, compared with non-believers, when completing a task under pressure. As a result, the believers performed better on cognitive tests.

"[Religious people] were much less anxious and stressed when they made an error," said Michael Inzlicht, an assistant psychology professor at the University of Toronto and a co-author of the study. "I don't think this has to do with fundamentalism, it's something deeper - religion provides meaning in peoples' lives."

 Here's a list to give theists some real choice in their worship. Make sure to pick the right god, because if you don't, the real one(s) will be very upset.

(source: http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_myth_gods_index.htm)

- A -

Agdistis or Angdistis

Ah Puch

Ahura Mazda

Alberich

Allah

Amaterasu

An

Anansi

Anat

Andvari

Anshar

Anu

Aphrodite

Apollo

Apsu

Ares

Artemis

Asclepius

Athena

Athirat

Athtart

Atlas

- B -

Baal

Ba Xian

Bacchus

Balder

Bast

Bellona

Bergelmir

Bes

Bixia Yuanjin

Bragi

Brahma

Brigit

- C -

Camaxtli

Captain Pineapple

Ceres

Ceridwen

Cernunnos

Chac

Chalchiuhtlicue

Charun

Chemosh

Cheng-huang

Cybele

- D -

Dagon

Damkina (Dumkina)

Davlin

Dawn

Demeter

Diana

Di Cang

Dionysus

- E -

Ea

El

Enki

Enlil

Eos

Epona

Ereskigal

- F -

Farbauti

Fenrir

Forseti

Freya

Freyr

Frigg

- G -

Gaia

Ganesha

Ganga

Garuda

Gauri

Geb

Geong Si

- H -

Hades

Hanuman

 A recent economic survey yields relatively reliable evidence that Christians are hypocritical in their denouncement of porn.  The red states with lots of religious people?  Lots of online porn subscriptions.

Personally, my interpretation of this survey is that Christians are typically not smart enough (or brave enough to take the time) to find as much porn as they want for free.

Of note is that not only do Christians consume online porn as much or more than anybody else, but they cram it into six days, preferring not to piss God off as much on Sunday.

Anway, read it for yourself.  It's short, and has some interesting information on the marketing of porn.

I was reading through one of the forums that I regularly visit, and I came across a thread about a news article about a man who had just been sentenced to 20 years in prison because of rape charges. He had attacked and raped two women in the Seattle area. He had a childhood history of being raped by his father. The members of the forum were calling for his death, saying that it was the only possible way to avenge the attacking of these two women (note that neither of the women were killed). Other people said that he should be raped every day for the rest of his life and that this was the only way for him to be handeled. Out of all of the crimes a man can commit, rape seems to be the most offensive to the most people-- even moreso than murder in some cases.

I think that the reactionary responses to this event are extremely interesting. Why is it that rape is the worst thing one can do to a person? Is it because of its sexual nature and our christian conditioning to believe that sex is evil? That man could have beat both of those women to near death and got a lesser sentence than what he got for raping them. He could've got the same sentence for murdering someone if he was lucky. There is a strange knee-jerk reaction to rape that automatically makes people violently offended. Many women are traumatized for life after they are raped. Why is this? Why does this make women lose more trust than if they were beaten very horribly and not just fucked against their will?

Below is a link to a "Google Tech Talk" YouTube video given by B. Alan Wallace on science and the study of consciousness. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7gBW9HoTg8&feature=PlayList&p=B2CA29A4B3268623&playnext=1&index=1

Clearly an intelligent designer is at work.

( a + bn )/n = x

Just came out in Annales Acta Mathematica. It's not electronic, so don't bother asking for a link.

I've been skimming through John Loftus' new book and I read Bart Ehrman's book on theodicy this summer, so the problem of evil has been on my mind for a while.  It's occurred to me that Christians waste an inordinate amount of time on this issue.  While I've no desire to give you guys any ammunition, I also think it's a dead issue, especially where Christian beliefs are concerned.  I invite everybody to critique my logic here, because the odds are I got something wrong.  Still, I think this is pretty strong, so here goes.

I'll start by saying that Christians pay the riddle of Epicurus and its variants way too much attention.  When it comes down to it, there would be no concept of theodicy without it, but you fret over it needlessly.  For one thing, it's irrelevant to your conception of God, and for another, I'm an atheist and I've got no business defining how God should or should not behave.  There.  Bye-bye, Epicurus (don't worry.  I don't need him).