Well, this is sort of good news. What amazes me is that despite our founding fathers being about as non-theistic as one could possibly be at that time, it took until now for a federal elected official to state this.

Worse is that he stated it after being elected. I'd be curious to see if he can get reelected after this statement. I certainly hope so!!

Religion clouds morals rather than strengthening them. It is time we entered an age of reason rather than going back to the dark ages as has been the trend of late. Years from now people will look out our current mythologies in the same way that we now look at many other mythologies in which few or zero people still believe. But, only if we manage to live that long.

Religion will not help us to do so. Religion is, by definition, sectarian. It is divisive, causing increases in outgroup hostility. Until we realize that there is no outgroup, we are at a higher risk of warfare. In this day and age, warfare is one of several activities at high risk of causing our own extinction.

We must accept that we are all Us. Religion would have people (sheeple?) believe that there exists a concept of Us and Them. Of course, it is always OK to kill Them. However, in reality, humans went through a bottle neck just 70-80,000 years ago where there were only 3-7,000 people on the planet. We are thus ALL closely related to each other. We are ALL Us.

Do people kill for other reasons? Of course. But, religion is one of many large causes of both individual and mass murder. Yet, in the United States, religion is highly valued, for some reason. Isn't it ironic then that the U.S has a far higher violent crime rate than any other developed democratic nation? Isn't it ironic that even among the other far safer nations of the world, there is a high correlation between religiosity and violent crime rate? Isn't it ironic that in the U.S., most people surveyed will not vote for anyone who does not believe in some imaginary sky spirit?

Let's all celebrate this case and hope against hope that it is a signal of better times to come. Perhaps this will be the point at which future generations proclaim the dawn of reason in the United States. Too bad I can't really be more hopeful that this is the case. All I can do is try to propagate better memes and generate at least a modicum of respect for those who refuse to allow their lives to revolve around an ancient and violent superstition.

Mother nature has a way of solving this problem. Mother nature solved the dinosaur problem. Death is natures way of telling you you that you made a mistake.

Our problem is to find a way to stop these morons from taking us with them when their irrational, thoughtless, mindless and instinctive monkey-like religion drives them extinction.

You need only see a troop of apes bow down and pray to the alpha male gorilla to relize religion was invented by apes. Religion is not appropriate for sentient, thinking, self aware beings.

Clifton McCarthy, I think we mostly agree in principal. However, I'd like to correct a few misconceptions:

1) Extant dinosaur species still outnumber extant mammal species two to one. Birds are dinosaurs.

2) Monkeys do not have religion as we know it and are far from mindless and thoughtless. They actually have quite strong morals.

3) I've seen both mountain gorillas and chimpanzees in the wild and have read much on the subject of apes and neither seen nor read about anything as mindless as our religion in their societies. The closest they come is that some chimps do a sort of dance when it rains. I'm not prepared to call this organized religion.

4) All species of apes, a few monkeys, and dolphins have all passed the mirror test and qualify as sentient and self-aware by any rational standards.

5) Of course religion was invented by apes. Humans are apes. Perhaps this is what you mean humans when you refer to humans bowing to the alpha male?

In short, I try to avoid insulting other species by comparing them with humans. Chimps are the only ones that may be as evil as we are. However, they are not as good at it as we are.

Bonobos are the most interesting of the apes, IMHO. They are exactly as closely related to us as chimps, and are a female dominated species with no recorded cases of intraspecies lethal violence. They are truly a "make love not war" species. All members of the species are perfectly bisexual. They use sex to relieve social tensions. They also have a greater tendency than chimps to walk upright, especially when carrying tools. Too bad our social behavior is more like that of the chimp, despite the greater physical similarity to the bonobo.

Not all religions are created equal. The tribal religions, the tribal god(s), are the most destructive because they are racist. A racist religion is the most destructive as compared to a religion open to all, regardless of race or ethnic origin. Down with racism. Be inclusive, not exclusive.

Mostafa,

It's certainly true that not all religions are equal. However, it isn't about whether the religion is open to all. Certainly christianity is open to all and causes huge damage. The issue is how members of the religion feel about people that continue to opt out of the religion.

I know nothing of tribal religions. Jainism, an Indian religion, is certainlly not violent. Jainists walk with a broom to continually sweep away bugs to avoid killing anyone of any species. They are highly unlikely to start killing people over their religion.

The bigger question is why we need a mythology at all. If what we want is some form of spirituality, Eastern forms of meditation are far advanced over Western religions. It's strange to me that we named our species for its ability to be rational, but then reject reason so resoundingly throughout the world.

Under a billion people call themselves non-theists. This says that even in this day with incredible science at our fingertips, we still reject most of that science in our day to day lives.

People "reason" that there must be a god due to cause and effect. Yet, quantum mechanics denies cause and effect. And, these same people rejecting quantum mechanics turn on computers and blog on the internet without any thought for the fact that the semiconductors in their computers work because of quantum mechanics.

People "reason" that there must be a god because we're way to complex to have evolved by random chance. But, evolution is only somewhat random. The mutations are random. The natural selection that puts pressure on species to evolve to survive is not directed toward anything in particular but is very much non-random.

And, our design flaws, bad backs and knees due to our recent evolution from knuckle-walkers and our backwards eyes with their blind spots due to the bundle of nerves that must go through the retina because our rods and cones face the wrong way all point to an evolutionary process that fine tunes species to be just good enough. Just good enough happens to be pretty amazing, but it is not the perfect design one would expect from a designer.

Further, people actually believe that an all powerful, all knowing, all benevolent creator went so far as to create 100,000,000,000 (10^11) stars and 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10^22) planets just to put our pathetic little species on some utterly insignificant little rock in the middle of nowhere in particular. How much self-delusion does that take? When will we drop these silly mythologies and start allowing ourselves to bask in awe at the beauty of our universe?

Godless Communism has killed more than all religions combined, many times over. The Senate report of 7/71 stated that China commies killed 62 million. In the Soviet Union, Solzhenitsyn said 67 million were killed by the religion that Marx(Jew) founded. Finally, in Cambodia, two thirds of the population was killed(75-79) by the communists, a Holocaust, but the Rabbi's were silent. Why? Judaism is a tribal religion. In the middle east, today, it is responsible for too much of the trouble. Hitler was a pagan and served the old German gods of another age. In Chinese history, the Mongolian invasion(1210 and 1311, not over religion) killed 35million and the bandit leader Chung(Yellow Tiger) 1643, Szechwan province, killed 40million. I could go on. But you get the idea. The Godless law of the jungle kills a lot more than the Prophet ever did in his wars of defense.

The need of religion in the human mind seems to be due to fear. A lot of people fear what they don't understand or what is different. Some of us have faith, so we do not need religion to bolster our internal fortitude. I think Ben Franklin said it well when he said that, people who think this God had time to worry and wait on them were very egotistical . Khan make a very good point as to why we should find a better philosophy, abuse of the ones stated and the ones in other comments is why we need to use our ability to reason things out instead of using a God as an excuse to abuse and kill others. I do not object to others having this support group, if they need it, fine, just keep it out of my government and my life! We could all consider everyone equal to each other, no better, find each persons niche, help them be the best they can be. Try putting yourself in their shoes before condemning them. Be responsible for yourself. Have a great day everyone!

Khan, WRT "godless communism", I would point out that the "godless communists" killed because of an ideology, communism, NOT because of a LACK of ideology, atheism.

As I stated in my first post on this topic, from 03/12/07 at 7:40 PM, of course people kill for other reasons as well. But, I doubt you can find a case where someone killed for the advancement of atheism.

No one in the history of the world has been able to PROVE the existence of a God. You would think that before legislators make laws that favor religious ideology they would have to prove the existence of their God.

Good point Randy Hill. The only problem with it is the start of the sentence "You would think". Perhaps yes. But, most sheeple wouldn't bother to think at all. Too much work.

This conversation is now also going on at the Dvorak Blog. I wonder if I can increase readership and participation on both blogs by cross-linking them. Do I dare?

http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=10303

First, the on-topic portion...

Pete Stark is much more important than a hero -- he's a test case! I hope the test goes well and he can be re-elected. Even if it's a liberal state like California, it would still be a victory.

Now, drifting from the topic...

It's easy to think of religion as primitive and mindless, but at their core, don't most religions simply attempt to answer the question, "Where did we come from?" That seems to be the foundation on which most religions are built, and both the question itself and the creative ways in which it has been answered give us clues as to why animals aren't religious. Higher animals may have limited self-awareness, but it doesn't quite reach the level of needing to explain their origin in some semi-satisfactory way.

But while the cognitive functions that give rise to religion may seem pretty high-level, religion often degenerates quickly from that point on, as people begin adding rules and mythologies that benefit and empower some, while restricting others unnecessarily. I think the stories of religion would be much more entertaining if we could view them from a more detached perspective, rather than having to deal with their effects in our daily lives.

Note to Misanthropic Scott: Those bonobos you were describing in your earlier comments sound interesting. With their high intelligence and non-violent nature, they sound like the perfect species for humans to subjugate and enslave! Ssshhhhh -- we must keep this quiet ;-)