EonBlue

from Unreasonable Faith

Saw this on Pharyngula this morning:

I don’t believe in Jahweh, Buddha, Ganesh, Zeus or Allah
And I don’t believe in Limbo, Hades, Heaven or Valhalla
I don’t believe in Brahma, Karma, Aphrodite or Jupiter
I’ve read both of the Testaments but can’t say which is stupider
I’ve got no time for Odin, Ceres, Poseidon or Kingu
They’re as fictional as Sherlock Homes or Arthur Dent or Pingu
When I hear a psalm or mantra then I can’t suppress my laughter
‘Cos the one thing gods are good for is to name the plates after
I think that Christianity, Islam and Scientology
Are all a scam that preys upon a quirk of our psychology
I care not if you curse me by the names of Baal or Shiva,
For I am the very model of an Fervent Unbeliever.

- MissPrism post #634

I liked it, thought I would post it…

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

Thomas Paine
The Age of Reason

On our celebration of Independence Day, we should include the independence of our government from our religion.  This separation used to be one of the cornerstones that led to the great nation that America used to be.  In the last 60 years, this wall has been chipped away by religious fanatics - even more so in the last eight years.

Do not forget that Thomas Jefferson, revered as one of The Great Fathers of this country:

Making good on a promise to a friend to summarize his views on Christianity, Thomas Jefferson set to work with scissors, snipping out every miracle and inconsistency he could find in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

In Jefferson’s version of the Gospels, for example, Jesus is still wrapped in swaddling clothes after his birth in Bethlehem. But there’s no angel telling shepherds watching their flocks by night that a savior has been born. Jefferson retains Jesus’ crucifixion but ends the text with his burial, not with the resurrection.

Stripping miracles from the story of Jesus was among the ambitious projects of a man with a famously restless mind. At 71, he read Plato’s “Republic” in the original Greek and found it lackluster.

Why do the religious revisionists continue to insist that our country was founded by christians? Do they knowingly lie, thus breaking one of their own commandments, or do they just continue to repeat a lie without doing any research for fear of what they might find?

Research the men who helped create this country.  Some of them were religious (though not fanatic by any stretch), and some were freethinkers.  And they managed to come together to create a great framework for a nation.  Where has this gone?  And when will we, as a country, realize that this is what made our country great and that as long as we keep heading down the road we are on, we will never get back to that place?

Thanks to PZ