In response to the letter of Tom Spence, Sr., there is no need to be miffed when a religious premise is questioned. Ask the same questions of your religion as you would of other religions. Does your religion hold up to an honest examination of any evidence?
You mentioned Martin Luther, the deceased religious scholar who bravely challenged the pope. Luther did not approve of using “thinking caps.” He said, “Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has…”. “Reason should be destroyed in all Christians.”
The solution? St. Augustine recommended torture. Martin Luther, T. Aquinas, and John Calvin advocated death for unbelievers.
Martin Luther even suggested deceit for God’s sake. “What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church? …a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them.” –Martin Luther
Freethought progress evolved slowly. Consider the writing of Thomas Paine, Robert Ingersoll, Huxley, Einstein… Thankfully, Martin Luther King learned nonviolence from Gandhi, a Hindu.
Brain research tells us that humans are good at making things up. We tend to recompose every time a memory is recalled. We tend to alter our own memories then believe them to be true, and disregard what we want not to be true. Is this why the Bible is so inconsistent?
Our imagination makes for wonderful stories and marvelous pageants, religious ones included. If only we could keep perspective and recognize the fiction in it.
“The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.”—John Stuart Mill
“…And in the final tolling it often turns out that the facts are more comforting than the fantasy.”—Carl Sagan, “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection,” from The Demon-
Haunted World: Science As A Candle In The
Dark,
1996
Geri Jensen and friends
Grand Marais
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