republished from Conversations with an ex-Jehovah’s Witness

When it comes to religion, children are the unwitting victims of a geographical lottery. Where you were born closely links to what religion your parents follow. This in turn is the best predictor of what you wind up with, often for life. The name given to this phenomenon is hereditary religion, which is defined as the propagation of a religion down through the generations based on the indoctrination of credulous young children before they can resist. If religion was all they got, perhaps this would not be objectionable. Unfortunately, they also get class enmities, religious doctrinal disagreements, nationalistic disputes, tribal jealousies, and other fractious hatreds that make hereditary religion a curse on humanity.

by Splendid Elles

Ah, air travel. It’s the fastest mode of transportation we have, and manages to make itself seem like the slowest. Having spent hours lying or sitting in uncomfortable airplane seats or on airport Rows of Seats We Can’t Squish Together to Make a Comfy Bed, I feel I have enough Pure Evil stored up to do a post relating to atheism. I give you: Why God Almost Certainly Does Not Exist: Part II.

The point that seems to be consistently missed is that god does not actually exist. I suppose it’s understandable why it’s been missed - Dawkins does leave his section on why a creator god must be as complex if not more so than its creations a bit lacking. I’ll fix that. 

republished from Conversations with an ex-Jehovah’s Witness

“Maybe YOU evolved from monkeys… but I certainly didn’t!”

I’m sure that every Atheist has heard that before - and most Creationists have probably said it at one time or another.

First of all, let me say that it’s a common misconception that humans are the direct descendants of apes. Rather, evolution suggests that at some point in our very distant past our species shared a common ancestor.

But back to the point… I never understood why people are often so offended at the thought of having evolved from a lesser form, whether it was a monkey, or some ugly, slimy thing crawling from the ooze. I’ll explain why:

On one hand you have the Creationist’s point of view: God stretches out his finger and, Poof! He creates man. Essentially, the human species is the same today as the day God first created him; sans la perfection. In fact, there is no potential for improvement to our species at all - other than the hope of reaching a perfect state in heaven.

But if you consider that we have evolved from something almost infinitely more primitive, there is the outlook that humankind will continue to evolve into something even more fantastic!