It seems awfully risky and unfair for god not to reveal himself to such tribes of people – but the truth is they have their own faiths, gods and ghosts that command and guide their society through life – they may celebrate the rain god, or the god of the trees for bringing them fresh food. In fact Christianity bares no relevance to these types of people because their ‘natural world’ (probably in the Amazon) is unimaginably different to ours.

While we are on the subject of promiscuity – have you ever stopped to wonder why promiscuous sex is considered a sin? To understand this you need to apply some medical logic – during the times of the Roman’s the world average life expectancy of an individual was about 20-30 years (I would more than likely be dead). In addition, during these times no one had heard of bacteria or viruses – in fact if you had said that there were little creatures, so small you could not see them living all over almost everything – people would have laughed at you (such was our ignorance – bear in mind that during such ignorant times many of the worlds largest religions were created and propagated).

During the times of Romans, people had sex as they do today – sometimes for pleasure. They didn’t know that to do so could transfer disease because they didn’t know what caused disease. However, it is likely that people understood that prostitutes would more often than not catch diseases some pretty horrific (syphilis is famous because it is horrendous, it rots the flesh of its victims effectively eating them alive, at the same time it fools the brain into making it feeling more promiscuous, so that it’s host goes around having lots of sex and ensuring that the bacterium spreads and reproduces as much as possible). Now the religious people who could not explain anything at all at the time, assumed that prostitutes were immoral and having sex for profit is a sin, which god punishes with an early and painful death – this is excusable and understandable when being in the unfortunate position of not having any other knowledge.

On a side note: Many animals suffer from syphilis, again reaffirming my belief that humans are just another animal – at least two or three STDs (Chlamydia being another) have relationships with animals, the bacteria doesn’t show any prejudice between the hosts, all it needs is a biological environment in which to replicate and a method of transmission to ensure its genetic survival – if humans were different from animals then we wouldn’t get sick like animals do.

Without science to explain disease, god becomes vastly more relevant – I would even argue, that it becomes almost useful – as it could control people’s behaviour, and prevent the spread of some disease, albeit only a little bit, for example it might deter a man from visiting a prostitute – i.e. don’t do that god will not like it, and he may give you a disease that will rot your flesh for you sins – that I can understand 2000 years ago.

Incidentally, the trend in life expectancies of 20-30 years persisted until the late 20^th century, from 1960 until 1970 we saw a massive improvement in healthcare as our understanding of biology (free of religious dogma and stigma) progressed and accelerated by evolutionary theory, and as a result life expectancy has been dramatically increased – no amount of praying has done this, praying achieved nothing for over 2000 years (assuming people only pray to Jesus – which in itself is false) – hard science on the other hand achieved many things.

We don’t need to use religion as a tool to control people’s dangerous / risky behaviours – instead we can educate them instead, which has been proved to be vastly more effective, and if that fails – our unhindered modern thought has allowed us to develop tools (theories and medical advances) to combat the disease – rather than suspicious non-sense, of spirits, and breaking of the rules of the lord have brought this upon you gibberish… instead we can see the real cause and effect of such ailments – and this is why Religion is the enemy of scientific reason, because it doesn’t want people to learn any other cause and effect other than those moral codes defined within the bible – because those codes are used to control people, and science takes that control away and the Church looses its power over the people.

Galileo advanced science in his field, accept, that Church persecuted him and made him retract his claims delaying his science for decades – this again is a crime and even more of a crime considering as you say that the Church sponsored Galileo’s education and teaching – it cries hypocrisy, and makes me want to cry for humanity. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Church would do the same today given half the chance regarding such discoveries as evolution and DNA (they are trying to restrict the teachings of evolution in schools and are pushing for intelligent design instead – which is not science, because it starts off with a conclusion which science does not do, science starts with a theory, tests it and concludes with the results of the test).

The work that is being undertaken by scientists such as Dr Venter – who is on the verge of creating synthetic life in a lab who has been branded as a ‘Frankenstein’ doctor by religious people quoting the scripture you defend.

No matter what reasoning, or evidence is presented by science, Religion will deny progress claiming it to be unethical, and say it is humans playing god, or using the design that god created, or the fact that Dr Venter has created life will be evidence that god did the same thing by design (twisting the facts)… even though Dr Venter the leading world expert in this area has stated publically that there is no evidence in his research that suggests that evolution is wrong or that there is anything to suggest that natural life was intelligently designed. Now I am not being pigheaded here – this guy should know, he has dedicated his life’s work to this – he’s the man who is about to create life, not a quack but a real well read scientist.

Denying scientific finding is as immoral today as it was in Galileo’s time – because it causes unnecessary delay, and motivates people who are not experts to attack those who either physically or politically on moral grounds that are founded on belief systems that were designed by society hundreds if not thousands of years ago. Equally defending the scriptures supports these lunatics and underpins their actions and statements.

So for me the issue isn’t so much of who is wrong or right with regard to the existence of God, because know one really knows – the issue and the real answer to Chrisianity’s question of why young people are favouring Atheism is that they see the hypocrisy and the injustices of the historic and modern Church – they see moral issues, such as denying evolution, even though it explains a lot, denying people in Africa condoms even though they will save lives of thousands of innocent children born to HIV infected mothers and, the they see the abuse of scientific methodology and actors of science. For me the biggest fear, is the immoral acts of violence that are frequently reported – abortion doctors that are shot, embryologists that are spat at and verbally abused, and terrorist bombers that kill and injury hundreds of innocent people while just trying to do their business, in the name of Allah, Jesus or whatever.

Now I take your point about not being responsible for these people’s actions because not all Christians / Religious people are bad – but this is flawed, Christianity defends the word, they propagate these beliefs and support them in the face of overwhelming reason and logic, by utilising and adopting philosophical and now pseudo scientific debate.

It is a kin to a drug user using heroin, he doesn’t harm anyone either except for himself (he thinks), yet if he knew how those drugs were delivered to him he may see a different side to his addiction, he may see the farmer in the third world country who is paid nothing for producing the poppies, he may see the child labour and associated brutality of this drug producing world, he may see the female mule, who swallows packets of pure heroin in order to smuggle them into the country, he may see the criminal who sells drugs but also mugs old ladies for their hand bags and stabs people that do not pay up on time… and then he may see that his money pays for this immoral chain of events lining the pockets of key process owners – i.e. the barons, the contract killers and such like.

That my friend, is exactly how I see religion, I see the people suffering from AIDS, I see homosexuals who are beaten up by thugs who think they are right because the bible says that it should be done. I see the scientists that are beaten and abused by fundamentalists who think they are right above anything else, and I also see the naive religious people who think that are doing good, and do not actually realise that they are doing great harm to the world because they are tampering with people’s beliefs and installing right from wrong based on a outdated text into people who act out their own style of justice with a conscience that is cleaned by their faith in god.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urlTBBKTO68&feature=fvst

Supporting the ‘word’ that justified these crimes would make me no better than the people that performed these crimes, as they used the so called ‘word of god’ to justify their actions.

The 19th, 20th and 21st charitable face of Christianity (the Victorian morals) is a kin to a thug beating up someone, and then calling an ambulance and giving them medical care afterwards. The damage by religion on the human race has been done – and any number of Christian aid charities, apology’s to grate men like Galileo Galilei – will undo these wrongs.

Hitler used God to appeal to the masses – and in doing so galvanised and implemented the final solution – to terminate all Jews – such is the horror of religion when used in all it’s crowning glory. And today, we are still picking up the pieces, the conflict between the Jews and Muslims is exaggerated by the aftermath of the paranoia that all Jews have regarding their race and other race’s desire to terminate them.

The way forward is to drop this sociological tool (i.e. religion) – and to use something that is better – that is foundered on the belief of no absolutes, and the ability to be proven wrong. Einstein’s theories are tested to this day, and one day many of them may be proved wrong, or subsumed into wider reaching understandings – this is a rational perspective. You will not find people that will galvanise nations to go to war or terminate others based on Einstine’s philosophy or theories – and the say Einstine is proven wrong will be celebrated – as this will be the day, when humanity has stood on the shoulders of a scientific giant and proved him wrong in order to better the human race’s knowledge and understanding of the universe.

Inventing God is a cheat – it gives people the excuse not to think or explorer ‘we don’t understand it – therefore God created it’ – but actually including God into the equation makes things harder to explain.

If God created everything – who or what created God? and if God was not created and has always been – where exactly was he when before he created everything.

These paradoxes are prevalent in science also, but science attempts to explorer these topics – religion just says, it is just so – live with it. One day science may prove that there is a god – but until that time, we should all be sceptical and we should all search for the truth unhindered without indoctrination and fear or belief in the words that were written by old fashioned thinking and ideology.

But the philosophical debate surrounding God is just a distraction – the main reason for God to exist in a sociological context is to control people. Since man learnt to speak, he has used beliefs to support his political and moral view. God has taken us to war countless times, it has been used as an excuse to smother great discoveries like evolution, genetics and cell biology.

Many of the things that church has used to justify its actions are immoral – for example the use of condoms to prevent AIDS – the fact that the Catholic church is against this sickens me… the mature rational view is to understand that humans have sex, sometimes for pleasure – and no matter what you or I think, it will always be so. But to make people who do not understand the risks in third world countries, believe that they will go to hell for using a condom is awful – the real hell is living with AIDS in a third world country without medical care – that is a living hell.

And what do the Christians say – well abstain, don’t have sex – because to do so out side of wedlock is a sin anyway – this is rubbish. Men and women are animals, they were animals before religion came and they are animals after religion came. Since they are animals, they have animal needs, desires and instincts – asking someone to abstain from sex is like saying – never eat until satisfied. Perhaps, this explains why priests that claim that they are celibate seem to be the ones that prosecuted for raping little boys… as they may not regard that as sex outside of marriage so this is OK.

Or perhaps, it is OK for a Christian to perform a immoral act so long as it is confessed – after all Jesus forgives all of our sins – except the one to deny the holly ghost’s existence – do you not think it strange, that this is the one sin that is easiest one to perform? It is easier than murder, rape, theft, adultery – so no wonder Christians are terrified of thinking and are blinded by their faith… poor souls, how you suffer the injustices of man on man.

Not that I have any particular resentment for the man, but I just hate celebrities that behave like charity is something they invented.

Like many A-list celebrities, Bono makes millions from his record sales, tours and guest appearances. And like many celebrities, he profits off his publicity, it is safe to say that any amount of publicity adds to his bank balance.

This does beg the ethical question, is it right for such a celebrity to be involved and preaching charity, when they live in total luxury, beyond most people’s wildest dreams. Not only that but these celebrities, have the best cars, biggest houses, private jets and top designer clothes – where single items can cost over £10,000 – they have and use more of the world’s resources than any other type of individual.

I would listen more to celebrities, if they actually gave some of there cash from their own pockets back to the charities they support, and lived a more humble life – this must be possible surely?