By James A. Haught | 11 May 2023
Freethought Now
A bizarre flaw taints the human species: Over the millennia, a handful of people have concocted imaginary, invisible gods — then multitudes have worshiped them as if they actually existed.
A few thinkers have perceived the falsity of faith. Michel de Montaigne, who created the essay, wrote: “Man is certainly stark mad. He cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen.”
Actually, it isn’t dozens of gods — it’s thousands, even millions. History records tens of thousands of various deities who have held sway. Aztecs sacrificed 20,000 victims yearly to a grotesque pantheon. Priests killed maidens, skinned them, and wore their skin in sacred dancing. India’s Thugs strangled an estimated 20,000 annually for the many-armed goddess Kali. Hinduism says there are 330 million gods, but can’t name them all.
There have been a few dissenters to this make-believe.
In Ancient Greece, Prodicus said: “The gods of popular belief do not exist.”
Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to John Adams: “The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”
Thomas Alva Edison told newspapers: “Religion is all bunk.”
Comedian George Carlin called religion “the greatest bullshit story ever told.”
Supernatural religion is a colossal system of falsehoods https://t.co/o54LqourE7 via @ChurchAndStateN
— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) March 12, 2021
Fortunately, we freethinkers can use solid logic to prove that the god of Christianity doesn’t exist. In philosophy, the proof is called “the problem of evil.” It goes like this:
The church says the creator made everything that exists, and he’s both all-loving and all-powerful. Well, why did he create the Covid-19 pandemic that has killed millions around the world? Or, if he saw that nature was creating the tragedy, why didn’t he save the victims? Does he simply not care if so many people die in agony? This same logic applies to breast cancer in women, leukemia in children, and all the other dread diseases that curse humankind. The supposed deity doesn’t prevent them.
More evidence: The 2004 Christmas tsunami in the Indian Ocean drowned more than 200,000 people, many of them children. Other natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, floods, droughts and wildfires take a terrible human toll. The Christian god supposedly created them — and doesn’t lift a finger to help.
One more proof: Why did the “god of infinite mercy” design predator animals so they cannot live unless they rip innocent creatures to pieces?
This clear reasoning began with Epicurus in Ancient Greece. For millennia, theologians have tried to find a way to answer it. (Their struggling is called theodicy.) No church explanation works, though. The only obvious answer is that the “god of infinite mercy” and infinite power doesn’t exist.
Logic seems to have little effect on people, however, who want to worship imaginary, invisible spirits.
Reprinted with permission from the author.
James A. Haught is editor emeritus of West Virginia’s The Charleston Gazette-Mail and a senior editor of the Free Inquiry magazine. He is also the author of numerous books and articles; his most recent book is Religion is Dying: Soaring Secularism in America and the West (Gustav Broukal Press, 2010). Haught has won 21 national newswriting awards and thirty of his columns have been distributed by national syndicates. He is in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World, Contemporary Authors, and 2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century."Holy Horrors: An Illustrated History of Religious Murder and Madness" by James Haught. https://t.co/Mt7KVrhHMD pic.twitter.com/91SMfcVXlK
— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) March 18, 2019
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Again, wrong on all counts.
In Ancient Greece, Prodicus said: “The gods of popular belief do not exist.”
Cicero says that almost no philosophers held atheism or agnosticism.
Prodicus is a major nobody. Cicero is the voice of classical culture
Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to John Adams: “The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”
Adams himself did NOT hold this view and his son especially repudiated Jefferson on this very point
John Quincy Adams
The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.
Thomas Alva Edison told newspapers: “Religion is all bunk.”
Stop being lazy. Edison was known for his love of pornography. He did some great things but he was a moral failure.