Faith is so useful in these sorts of stark disillusioning situations, isn’t it? Oh let’s just all pray about it. I mean, surely He’ll continue answering our banal prayers for money, health and love, won’t he?
That God, He’s so mysterious and so very..

“Their forelimbs and shoulders are heavily muscled and the forepaws have long sharp retractile claws, enabling them to grab and hold prey once contact is made.. The skull is foreshortened, thus increasing the shearing leverage of the powerful jaws.. The tongue is coated with sharp-pointed papillae which retain and lacerate food and rip flesh off a carcass. Large canines are used to bring down and hold prey.”
San Francisco Zoo Website

..wicked.

Oh wait, I know what’s going on with His Almighty. He’s been too busy with Extreme Makeover Home Edition. That must be it… But then… there were twenty or so thousand children painfully starving to death daily in Africa before that show premiered so I’m not sure.

I guess having a childlike unquestioning faith must really help with these sorts of annoying pesky realities.. well.. not in Africa I suppose. Well damn, I just thought of those poor Russian Beslan children blown to smithereens in their school gymnasium by Chechen terrorists a couple years ago.

God, you’ll still help me with my prayers though, right? Hello? God? Anyone there? Damn that Extreme Makeover Home Edition!

No. We don’t need religion to make good decisions. And by religion, I mean that which differentiates it from other community organizations:

• belief in the supernatural and the superstitious (a god being, prayer, miracles) and
• faith in the infallibility of ancient texts or the authority of the priestly class (bible, koran, pope, preacher, etc.).

Decision making ought to be based on the best facts that one can surmise. Since we know that ancient texts are often filled with barbaric cruel immoral contradictory stories (see the Bible) written by a multitude of men for a multitude of ancient cultures, they cannot be the best source of wisdom when deciding things today.

These facts ought to based on reality or as close an approximation to reality that is currently available. The Scientific Method (and its handmaiden: Technology) is the best tool we have for investigating reality. With science, we separate fact from wishful thinking (an afterlife, angels, psychic power). With science, we separate fact from superstition (prayer, ghosts, curses, hell).

Reality ought to be based on evidence. Evidence is the foundation of science. And evidence ought to be the foundation for good decisions. Not supernatural beliefs, not superstitions, not faith in ancient texts, not adherence to dogma, not anything non-reality based.

Therefore, the best decision making from the minute (or individual) to the grand (or governmental) ought to be based on facts, based on reality, based on evidence.

And most people already live their lives in this way. People insist their transportation, medicine, food, buildings and utilities meet strict scientific standards. People insist their professionals: doctors, lawyers, engineers, technicians, and mechanics are trained according to strict scientific standards.

(fade in scary music) Less and less, the purveyors of the supernatural – the priestly class – influence the day to day decisions of humanity. And that is good. Otherwise, a return to the Dark Ages awaits! (swell music) Wha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!! (fade out)

(The preceding was my comment in resonse to a post at Newsvine.com.)

*Obviously, I’m an Atheist (naturalist, humanist, rationalist). I used to call myself an Agnostic until I thought about it. I can’t definitively prove that Unicorns don’t exist but I’m a Unicorn Atheist nonetheless. With that in mind, I’ve since dropped the wishy-washy Agnostic label when it comes to omnipotent omniscient magical God Beings in the sky and now Atheist easily and confidently rolls off my lips whenever anyone asks.

Having hope for a better tomorrow does not require belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being. Having hope for a better tomorrow requires only having. Belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being is unnecessary and often confuses.

Finding peace today does not require belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being. Finding peace today requires only finding. Belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being is unnecessary and often confuses.

Relinquishing fears and accepting love does not require belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being. Relinquishing fears and accepting love requires only relinquishing and accepting. Belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being is unnecessary and often confuses.

Discovering meaning in life does not require belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being. Discovering meaning requires only discovering. Belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being is unnecessary and often confuses.

Giving purpose to life does not require belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being. Giving purpose to life requires only giving. Belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being is unnecessary and often confuses.

Creating a better world does not require belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being. Creating a better world requires only creating. Belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being is unnecessary and often confuses.

Transforming self-destructive ways into self-enriching ones does not require belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being. Transforming self-destructive ways into self-enriching ones requires only transforming. Belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being is unnecessary and often confuses.

Stopping bad habits and freeing energy for personal betterment does not require belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being. Stopping bad habits and freeing energy for personal betterment requires only stopping and freeing. Belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being is unnecessary and often confuses.

Choosing to live with honesty, kindness, charity and fairness does not require belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being. Choosing to live with honesty, kindness, charity and fairness requires only choosing. Belief in a supernatural omniptent god being is unnecessary and often confuses.

And belief in a supernatural omnipotent god being does not require a supernatural omniptotent god being. Belief in a supernatural omniptent god being requires only belief.

Look at my watch, which tells the time; it goes round, and so the world repeats itself again and again. But just as the hour-hand of the watch goes up to twelve and down to six, so, too, there is day and night, waking and sleeping, living and dying, summer and winter. You can’t have any one of these without the other, because you wouldn’t be able to know what black is unless you had seen it side-by-side with white, or white unless side-by-bide with black.

In the same way, there are times when the world is, and times when it isn’t, for if the world went on and on without rest for ever and ever, it would get horribly tired of itself. It comes and it goes. Now you see it; now you don’t. So because it doesn’t get tired of itself, it always comes back again after it disappears. It’s like your breath: it goes in and out, in and out, and if you try to hold it in all the time you feel terrible. It’s also like the game of hide-and-seek, because it’s always fun to find new ways of hiding, and to seek for someone who doesn’t always hide in the same place.

God also like to play hide-and-seek, but becaus there is nothing outside God, he has no one but himself to play with. But he gets over this difficulty by pretending that he is not himself. This is his way of hiding from himself. He pretends that he is you and I and all the people in the world, all the animals, all the plants, all the rocks, and all the stars. In this way he has strange and wonderful adventures, some of which are terrible and frightening. But these are just like bad dreams, for when he wakes up they will disappear.

Now when God plays hide and pretends that he is you and I, he does it so well that it takes him a long time to remember where and how he hid himself. but that’s the whole fun of it–just what he wanted to do. He doesn’t want to find himself too quickly, for that would spoil the game. That is why it is so difficult for you and me to find out that we are God in disguise, pretending not to be himself. But when the game has gone on long enough, all of us will wake up, stop pretending, and remember that we are all one single Self–the God who is all that there is and who lives for ever and ever.

Of course, you must remember that God isn’t shaped like a person. People have skins and there is always something outside our skins. If there weren’t, we wouldn’t know the difference between what is inside and outside our bodies. But God has no skin and no shape because there isn’t any outside to him. The inside and the outside of God are the same. And though I have been talking about God as ‘he’ and not ‘she,’ God isn’t a man or a woman. I didn’t say ‘it’ because we usually say ‘it’ for things that aren’t alive.

God is the Self of the world, but you can’t see God for the same reason that, without a mirror, you can’t see your own eyes, and you certainly can’t bite your own teeth or look inside your head. Your self is that cleverly hidden because it is God hiding.

You amy ask why God sometimes hides in the form of horrible people, or pretends to be people who suffer great disease and pain. Remember, first, that he isn’t really doing this to anyone but himself. Remember, too, that in almost all the stories you enjoy there have to be bad people as well as good people, for the thrill of the tale is to find out how the good people will get the better of the bad. It’s the same as when we play cards. At the beginning of the game we shuffle them all into a mess, which is like the bad things in the world, but the point of the game is to put the mess into good order, and the one who does it best is the winner. Then we shuffle the cards once more and play again, and so it goes with the world.
~Alan Watts