Thank you for answering my email. I am only 21 and it seams that I am searching for myself and what it is that I can believe. I see how people lie on a daily basis to make the even more entertaining than the event really was so I find it hard to believe anything that is told to me. Giving this way of living I find it tremendously hard to base my life and way of living around things that have been written in a book (the bible) that has been translated umpteen different times before coming to english. The thought that people let their lives revolve around something that was written 2000 years ago just amazes me. As humans are we so daft to do such a thing? The more I look into religion the more I am amazed at the living situations of some people in this world.

My dad did not express any beliefs of god when I was young because he is like me a firm non-believer until there is hard core facts to show him. He wanted me to believe what I wanted and didn’t want his opinions to influence me so he felt it best not to tell me anything. My mother… well she didn’t teach me anything about god or religion until I was 12 we went to church for the first time. She stuck me in Sunday school before a service. Now my father’s mother was catholic. She went twice on Sunday and Wednesday night. I stayed the night with her several times and went to church with her I believe when I was 7. That was enough religion for me. I still remember sitting in the pew looking around saying to myself “are these people really this crazy?!?”

I went to public schools in Indiana. I went to ten different schools before 9th grade so needless to say I was not well adjusted. I never really had any foundation so to say.

I have two children and I want to be able to educate them on religion and allow them to choose their own way. I don’t see the point in trying to force them to do things my way because they need to find out who they are maybe then they won’t have the same struggles that I do.

To answer your question no I was never taught the prevailing theories of how the earth was formed through natural cosmic events. As I said we moved a lot and the curriculum was different at each school there were several things I missed out on. That is why I am so ignorant on religion because I was never taught the scientific end of the world.

I don’t feel that I “NEED” a religion. I would just like to know a little more about why I am here on this earth. I feel there is a purpose for everything because it just doesn’t seam like we exist just to exist. There is some sort of purpose behind our being. So now my job is to find the why.

Thank you so much for this information!! You are right I will have many more questions for you. I want to look over the information you have given me and I want to do some additional research. (Internet based because I now live in the middle of BFE so no museums in my area and the library has a limited amount of books. Besides the fact, I am in the middle of the Bible belt so there will be virtually no literature supporting the thought that there could be an existence not provided by god.)

And here is my new reply:

Thanks for answering my questions. Yes, please research for yourself. The internet opens the whole wide world of information up to you, even in the middle of BFE. I live in a small town that is quite heavily populated with churches and one sad library. There is one small set of shelves for the science section in there. It’s pathetic. I do almost all of my research online, too.

I was thinking about you today and found something that you might enjoy: a set of 5 videos for young and old alike by professor Richard Dawkins. He is an evolutionary biologist. It’s 5 lectures he is giving to children in England but I just watched the first two and really enjoyed them and learned little bits and pieces of information I didn’t know before. He talks and then demonstrates what he says in ways that are easy to understand. But trust me, he doesn’t talk down to anyone. He is quite interesting and has a great passion for life and how we got here and what our place in the world is.

Here is a link to his website with all 5 videos. They are an hour each, I think.

Finding meaning and purpose in your life is not the same as looking for something to believe in. Perhaps you’re using the term differently than I am. Perhaps what you mean is that the two things are the same. Let’s look at the definitions to clarify.

belief: 1. something believed; an opinion or conviction; 2. confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof; 3. confidence; faith; trust; 4. a religious tenet or tenets

purpose: 1. the reason for which something exists or is done, made, used, etc.; 2. an intended or desired result; end; aim; goal.

meaning: 2. the end, purpose, or significance of something

So a belief is a conviction that doesn’t have proof to back it up, which means it’s similar to faith.

faith: 2. belief that is not based on proof

You said you want to know why you are here on earth and that you feel there is a purpose for everything. Why do you feel this way? Is it because it gives you comfort? Just because you want to believe there is a deeper meaning to the universe doesn’t make it so. There is no evidence that there is any validity to that kind of thinking.

Let me put it this way. You say you feel there is a reason you are here on this earth. This leads to fallacious thinking where every little thing that goes right in your life affirms this false belief. Of course this is cherry-picking because you ignore all the things that happen in your life that are completely meaningless or downright negative. This leads you to think you (and the human race) are special, that we have some magical purpose because you have ignored the whole of reality to focus only on what you feel and what confirms what you want to believe to begin with.

The human mind is amazing and awesome, but it does take shortcuts and can easily be misled and make wrong conclusions. It’s very easy to cherry-pick and remember only what feels right or what seems special. This is dangerous and will lead you down a path of lies and myths in trying to believe in and confirm something that has no basis in reality.

It’s normal to ponder why were are here and what it all means. We have consciousness and an amazingly complex brain that can handle complicated concepts like the number 0 and the number 1 for example.

I also think this is one of the toughest issues an atheist deals with. If there is no god then what is the reason for existing? What is our purpose in life?

Well, it’s pretty simple. There is no purpose for everyone. You make your own purpose. You have to find your own meaning. I think some universal ideas would be to always keep learning, and do your best and be a good person. What is the meaning of life? There isn’t any one meaning. It’s what you find important. Try to find your own happiness and do as little damage to others as possible along the way.

Since you have children, nothing is more important in this part of your life than raising them to the best of your ability. Raising them free of dogma, with honesty, with a the ability to ask questions and think for themselves is the best thing you can do for them.

I know that thinking there is some cosmic force for good out there is really appealing, but there’s no evidence for such a thing. While it’s nice to chalk up good things to such a force, there are an awful lot of bad things – no natural justice, natural disasters, birth defects, etc – that make that seem pretty silly.

Basically you are here on this earth because life moves inexorably on. Within life, the need to procreate is part of evolution and natural selection. Again I recommend the videos by Dawkins that I linked to above. They will really give you an idea of evolution which will help you to see that we evolved naturally, and will continue to evolve unless we destroy ourselves and the planet by being careless, short-sighted and selfish.

Instead of searching for why you are here, make the most of your one precious life. Raise your children to the very best of your ability, be good to yourself and others, learn as much as you can. Make your own meaning and purpose with what you have.

Sometimes thinking for yourself, being free of religious dogma, reminds us of our grown-up responsibilities that religion masks. Thinking about such topics are part of being truly grown-up in this life. It might not be fun when you first encounter the new ideas, but reality is always preferable to fairy tales and lies. Give it a few days. Learn as much as you can about evolution and you’ll see. Truth and reality are magnificent and beautiful.

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The guy who leads the Scientific Evaluation of Religion things for this location has done a pretty good job the two times I have gone. I really have to give him credit and say I was impressed at how he handled this meeting since IT GOT HIJACKED BY A GROUP OF YOUNG EARTH CREATIONISTS! That’s right, you heard me. It was pretty interesting for me to see first hand their pulling out all the old cliché arguments for Christianity. They got started when there was a chapter summary that mentioned that most religious people are skeptical of other peoples faiths but not their own, they took issue with that statement and then proceeded to confirm its accuracy with their actions.

One creationist gave everyone a four-page handout entitled “Evolution, Science or Religion?” which my friend sent me a few days later. Here it is as he sent it to me: (BEGIN LOGICAL FALLACY DRINKING GAME NOW)

Evolution, Science or Religion?

Operational Science by definition uses observable, repeatable, and verifiable experiments to try to discover truth.

Origin Science relies on presuppositions, interpretations, and theory based on artifacts and remains. Origin Science tries to determine the past. This in not real science for it is neither observable, repeatable, or verifiable. Origin Science are interpretations based on operational science.

Scientific Fact Observed- 85% of the world’s rock is sedimentary and is found all over the world.

Belief #1 – This rock took billions of years to form through wind and water erosion.

Belief #2 – This rock was formed by a worldwide flood.

Both are beliefs, interpretations of the facts. The question is: which best explains the facts?

Which of these beliefs better explains polystrate fossils? Fossilized trees that go through multiple rock layers? Did those layers form around ther trees over millions of years or was it rapid sedimentation that occurred? What belief better explains this fact?

Which of those beliefs better explain that there are fossilized clams that have been found on the top of Mount Everest?

Have you ever taken a look at Burlingame Canyon? It took 6 days for this canyon to form… it is verifyable.

Scientific Fact Observed- the moon is drifting away from the earth slowly.

Belief #1- The Universe is billions of years old.

Belief #2 – The Universe is only thousands of years old. Because if you trace the drifting of the moon back for millions of years the moon would be on top of the earth. If you trace it back even less than that the moon would be so much closer to the earth that our tides would be out of control.

Which of these beliefs best fit the Science that we observe?

Scientific Fact Observed – Neptune is a very active planet that is still producing heat, has winds that reach over 1300 MPH and it gives off over twice the amount of energy than what it receives from the sun.

Belief #1- The Universe is billions of years old.

Belief #2 – The Universe is only several thousand years old. If it were millions or billions of years old Neptune would have cooled off and become inactive by now because of its distance from the sun. But if it is only thousands of years old then it would still be cooling off.

Use your reason… Assuming man evolved over hundreds of thousands or even millions of years, using an average life span of 43 years per generation and a family producing an average of 2.5 children, accounting for natural depletion by wars, famines, and plagues, our world should be populated by trillions of people. If this is true, where are they and where are the mountains of skeletons they would have generated?

Scientific Fact Observed – Birds give birth to Birds, dogs give birth to dogs, monkeys give birth to monkeys, humans give birth to humans etc.

Belief #1- All living things have a common ancestor. Over a long period of time sea creatures mutated into reptiles, reptiles mutated into birds which eventually led to every living creature we have today. (This is oversimplified but you get the general idea.)

Belief #2- All creatures were created fully functional and give birth after their own kind.

Which belief better fits what we observe?

Scientific fact observed – There has never been a mutation that has ever produced an increase or addition of information to the genetic code.

Belief #1 – Mutations are the engine that has brought about the evolution of all living creatures from single celled organism into all the creatures we see today.

Belief #2 – Mutations do occur. Mutations occor within kinds. There is no way mutation can change a simpler organism into a more complex organism because they do not produce new genetic information. Felines change into different kinds of felines, canines into different kinds of canines, but never felines into canines or any other transition between kinds.

Scientific fact observed - Geological research shows no transitional fossils.

Belief #1 – It’s not that they never existed, it’s that the geological record isn’t complete. “The explanation lies, however, in the extreme imperfection of the geologic record” – Charles Darwin

Belief #2 – Transitions between kinds has never occurred.

“I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossils or living, certainly I would have included it… I will lay it on the line. There is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument”. – Dr. Colin Patterson, Director of the British Museum of Natural History. Well Respected evolutionist and author, Letter to Luther D Sunderland

When talking about transitional fossils Charles Darwin said, “Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic change, and this is perhaps the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory”

As stated above Darwin attributed this to the incompleteness of the exploration of the fossil record at the time. But today, well over a century after that time with thousands of tons of fossils from all over the world the lack of transitional fossils is still a problem.

Evolutionist David Raup reviews the evidence from us. He has been the curator of the famous Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. That museum houses 20% of all fossil species known, so Raup is in a position to speak with considerable knowledge about fossil evidence. He says:

“Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin, and knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded… Ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time. By this I mean some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information.”

Which belief better fits the facts?

Scientific Fact observed- everything which has a beginning has a cause (Law of Cause and effect)

Belief #1- In the Beginning the universe caused itself.

Belief #2- In the Beginning God created the universe

If matter had a beginning, then belief number 1 cannot be true, the law of cause and effect shows that everything that has a beginning has a cause. Therefore one must conclude one of two things: either matter had no beginning or it had a cause.

Scientific Fact Observed – The 2nd Law of thermodynamics: The amount of energy available for work is running out, or entropy is increasing to a maximum.

Belief #1 – Matter had no beginning. The universe caused itself.

Belief #2 – Matter had a beginning, it was created by God.

If matter had no beginning then how can the 2nd law of thermodynamics be true? If the total amount of mass-energy is limited, and the amount of usable energy is decreasing, then the universe cannot have existed forever, otherwise it would already have exhausted all usable energy. Therefore if the universe has a beginning, it must have a cause (Law of cause and effect)

Which belief fits the facts? The universe had no cause, or God caused the universe?

One might ask “Well what/who caused God?”. Well that’s a good question. First I would say that logic demands that there be something which had no cause, something that is eternal. Because if I would answer who/what caused God, you would say “well who/what caused that?” and it would be an endless cycle. There had to have been something which had no beginning, and had no cause. These past two scientific facts prove that matter itself cannot be that which had no beginning or cause. Logic demands there must be something eternal, Science proves matter can’t be eternal, the Bible describes God as eternal. God is outside of time/space, He is eternal.

Scientific fact observed- Nonliving matter cannot produce living creatures. (Law of Biogenisis/Pasteur’s Law)

Belief #1- Life was spontaneously generated from nonliving matter, not from a Creator.

Belief #2- Life was created by God

Which answer best explains the facts? Science says spontaneous generation can’t happen, without God the first living organism would have had to have come from nonliving matter. But this is scientifically impossible.

Sir Ernest Chain, co-holder of the Nobel Prize for developing penicillin said this, “To postulate that the development and survival of the fittest is entirely a consequence of chance mutations seems to me a hypothesis based on no evidence and irreconcilable with the facts. These classical evolutionary theories are a gross over-simplification of an immensely complex and intricate mass of facts, and it amazes me that they are swallowed so uncritically and readily, and for such a long time, by so many scientists without a murmur of protest.”

Nobel Prize winning evolutionist and Harvard professor Dr George Wald answered this question when he said, “There are only two possible explanations as to how life arose. Spontaneous generation arising into evolution or the supernatural creative act of a God. There is no third possibility. Spontaneous generation, however, was scientifically disproved by Louis Pasteur and others. Therefore, that leaves only one possibility as to how life arose, that it was a supernatural creative act of a God. However, I choose not to believe this, because I do not want to believe in a God. Therefore I choose to believe that which I know is scientifically impossible.”

Why would Dr Wald, a man smart enough to win a Nobel prize, believe and teach something he considered to be scientifically impossible? Because he said he didn’t want to believe in a God. Why didn’t he want to believe in a God? Because if God is real then we will be accountable to Him one day.

If God is real you will stand in front of Him one day as well, how will you do? Here is a quick test: Have you ever lied? Have you ever stolen something? Jesus said ” If you have looked with lust you’ve committed adultery in your heart” Have you looked with lust? Have you ever murdered someone? Keep in mind Jesus said if you hate your brother or call your brother a fool you will be judged as a murderer. Have you ever taken God’s name in vain? This is called blasphemy. This is like taking God’s holy name, throwing it into the mud and stomping on it. Imagine if I took your mother’s name and used it in place of a 4 letter word. You’d be very offended wouldn’t you?… So how will you do? This is only four of the Ten Commandments, which is God’s standard of righteousness. When you stand before God will you be innocent or guilty? Will you be deserving of Heaven or Hell? Listen to your conscience, God gave you His moral code and a conscience so that you would know you are in need of Him.

Psalm 53:1 “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God.” When you look around and see design, order, art, and creation it is axiomatic that there is a designer, an orderer, an artist, and a creator behind it. We know there is design in something like a chair or an automobile. We know because the object itself is the evidence. You would not have to convince me that someone designed an automobile, I just know. Why then do we try to postulate (based on no facts, just guesses) that there is no designer or creator to nature, plants, animals, and humans?

If your conscience is telling you that you are guilty of breaking God’s commands that is a good thing. Listen to your conscience and understand that there is something wrong. Breaking God’s law will condemn you to Hell. Once you understand this you will understand that it is not God’s will to send anyone to Hell. Jesus Christ came to this earth (a historical fact that only extreme scoffers try to deny). Jesus said, “I am th way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” You see punishment that we all deserve for breaking God’s law was poured out on Christ. God loved us so much that He chose to cruch His own Son for our sake. The Bible tells us that Jesus became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God. There is no other belief, idea, person, religion, or anything that can save us from our sins. We must repent (turn from our sins) and believe the gospel. Don’t rely on blind faith any longer. Check out the claims of Christ and the Bible for yourself. Remember this story, many people came to Jesus and had objections to His message. He replied to them and said, “Unless you repent you will likewise perish.” Please do not be the kind of person that looks for any excuse to reject the message of salvation. Repent and believe the gospel today.

If you started the Logical Fallacy Drinking Game at the top, you are totally sloshed now, so you’re probably not even able to focus on the text anymore. Go pray to the white porcelain god for a bit then come back and tell us what you think.

My friend (who I am not naming because I didn’t ask his permission) says he’s going to go through and refute each point. Honestly this kind of dreck just makes me tired. I am posting it without comment for now. Feel free to pick it apart in the comments and maybe we can tackle different parts in different posts.

EDIT: I forgot that my friend (sorry, I really should have asked him if I could use his name, sorry) wrote a little creation story in response:

It’s obvious to anyone who looks at the evidence without some preconceived idea.
I mean we know for a fact that Odin, Vili and Ve killed Ymir, and his blood flooded the world and drowned all of the jötunn, except two.
But jötnar grew again in numbers and soon there were as many as before Ymir’s death.
Then the gods created seven more worlds using Ymir’s flesh for dirt, his blood for the Oceans, rivers and lakes, his bones for stone, his brain as the clouds, his skull for the heavens.
We know this because we see that the the earth is made from only a few “elements”. Just use your logic and the wisdom that comes from the all father, Odin.
Also “seven more worlds” right? 1 + 7 = 8 and now that we got the Pluto thing settled there are 8 planets in our solar system. Or should I say “Ymir’s left over body soup system” Slam dunk! Norse creation FTW! Jesus PWNED!
Sparks from Muspelheim flew up and became stars.
Sparks, am I right? We know stars are big burny things. That’s science people!
One day when the gods were walking they found two tree trunks. They transformed them into the shape of humans. We know this for a fact! Odin gave them life, Vili gave them mind and Ve gave them the ability to hear, see, and speak.
The gods named them Ask and Embla and built the kingdom of Middle-earth for them; and, to keep out the jötnar, the gods placed a gigantic fence made of Ymir’s eyelashes around Middle-earth.
Again, that is just science. Look down at your descended from tree truck people bodies and give thanks that we still have eyelashes keeping the jötnar at bay.

All hail the magic giant eyelash fence! WOOT! This is such a brilliant response. It makes way more sense though. LOL

Back to the creationist handout bullshit: I thought about removing the blatant proselytizing at the end, but then I figured you’re big people, you can handle it. Your comments are welcome and encouraged.

What’s your favorite bit that you find totally insanely stupid? Which fallacy does it commit? Why does it drive you mad?

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The Arrogance of Atheism
Why I’m an atheist, not an agnostic.

When I tell people I’m an atheist, they say, “How can you be so arrogant to think that you know God doesn’t exist? At least say you’re an agnostic and admit that you can’t know for sure one way or the other.”

Atheism! How arrogant!

But is it?

I’m an atheist because I haven’t heard any good reasons to think that gods exist, and I can think of lots of good reasons to think they don’t. I’m in exactly the same position with regard to Zeus, Apollo, invisible pink unicorns, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Are you agnostic about Zeus? Are you agnostic about invisible pink unicorns? Do you feel arrogant about disbelieving in the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Sure, I can’t prove that gods don’t exist anywhere in the universe. But because there’s no evidence for them, and lots of evidence against them, I feel confident saying, “Gods don’t exist.” Just like you feel confident saying, “Invisible pink unicorns don’t exist” and “Santa Claus doesn’t exist.”

Actually, I can do even better.

If you define your god precisely enough, I might be able to prove that your god cannot exist, in the same way I can prove a square circle can’t exist, in any universe. Here’s how.

Atheism isn’t arrogant, just like invisible-unicorn-disbelief isn’t arrogant.

Atheists tend to think it is arrogant of believers to assert their claims without any evidence.

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In my article yesterday, I made some assumptions and didn’t clarify my reasoning, as well as only did some surface work on the research. A perfect example of falling into the exact trap that needs to be avoided when trying to break free of false belief systems!

Lesson learned, and thank you for the excellent comments.

First, how about we define skepticism. I have found that Dictionary.com is a great place for this sort of thing. They reference several dictionaries for each entry.

So, from the American Heritage Dictionary through Dictionary.com, skepticism is defined as:

n.

1. A doubting or questioning attitude or state of mind; dubiety. See Synonyms at uncertainty.
2. Philosophy
   1. The ancient school of Pyrrho of Elis that stressed the uncertainty of our beliefs in order to oppose dogmatism.
   2. The doctrine that absolute knowledge is impossible, either in a particular domain or in general.
   3. A methodology based on an assumption of doubt with the aim of acquiring approximate or relative certainty.
3. Doubt or disbelief of religious tenets.

I’ve been mulling this issue over for a couple of days, and I feel that getting sidetracked with minute details would be pedantic and mind numbingly boring. This site is about breaking free of the shackles of organized religion, not about caffeine content in sodas, or if the Mayo Clinic is a good source of information on medical questions.

Let’s get to the meat of the issue. I made some leaps in my argument on being skeptical. Exactly what you don’t want to do. But I made those leaps based on my 39 years of experience and all the information I’ve gathered for myself in that time. I made good decisions for myself. My mistake was in not explaining them fully to you (I did that to avoid being pedantic and boring) and therefore assuming that MY logic was right for YOU. It’s an easy mistake to make.

Belief in a god is a personal issue. Only you can decide for yourself if gods exist.

See, most of us are taught at an early age, from the time we’re born, to believe in a particular god or gods. It’s hardwired into us. It become part of our foundation of belief. It takes a lot to untangle and dismantle that foundation of lies and myths. But inevitably we each walk that path alone. My information may prove useful to you, but you have to think for yourself if my logic or the information I give you works for you.

I’m just a simple person who shed religion years ago. I don’t have any fancy college degrees. I dish the information out plain and simple, with a dollop of humor. It might not be right for you, or it may just be perfect and logical.

So, I’ll just simply say, I hope this site gives you good information and can be a repository of facts that you can turn to again and again. But never get all your answers from one place. Think for yourself. Use your reason and logic. Does it ring true based on everything else you’ve learned? Perhaps you want to look for a second opinion somewhere else. Or a third, or more. Maybe part of it works for you, but some of it doesn’t. That’s fine. You’re unique, just like everyone else.

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My friend – we’ll call him Sam to protect his identity – said that he always knew this stuff was bad for you. And that was that for him. Case closed. I said I wanted more data. He said, “I don’t.. that stuff’s loaded with enough caffeine to explode an elephant’s heart… no more data needed.”

What? Are you kidding me?

Why am I writing about this today? Because you need to be skeptical. You need to keep an open mind and question what you see and hear. It’s in your best interest. Sam changed his behavior and his thinking by reading one article online. Assuming he read the whole thing. He probably only read one paragraph. Still, he’ll never drink Red Bull again.

The study was done on 30 university students between 20-24 years old. That’s such a small group, don’t you think? It was done one time from what I can tell. That’s it? What about a double blind study? What about a control group and testing different age brackets? Men and women react the same, etc?

The doctor in charge, Scott Willoughby, of the Cardiovascular Research Centre at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and Adelaide University, was so alarmed by his tiny little study, that he released his findings to the press. But not the study itself, at least not that I can find anywhere.

From the article, I should mention: Red Bull today emphatically denied that the drink, which is distributed to 143 countries worldwide, was dangerous. In a statement, it said that Red Bull had been proved safe by “numerous scientific studies”, and that it had never been banned from anywhere it had been introduced.

To Sam’s claims of “enough caffeine to explode an elephant’s heart”, I’m sorry to say, Sam, you’re quite wrong. I don’t think there are any studies on exactly the amount of caffeine needed to stop an elephant’s heart. But one can of Red Bull isn’t going to do it.

Let’s find some more information on caffeine. Let’s try the Mayo Clinic, they seem like a good choice.

It seems that more than 500 or 600 mg of caffeine a day can lead to restlessness, anxiety, headaches and other problems. No mention of what those other problems are.

Oh, first there’s a link about if caffeine is dehydrating, let’s see if that’s true first, bear with me… This is awesome! Recent research has shown that caffeine is only a diuretic if you consume large amounts, over 500 or 600 mg of it in a day. Other than that, coffee and soda drinks hydrate as well as water.

Back to your regularly scheduled lesson for today on caffeine content. I’ve taken the information from the Mayo Clinic’s set of tables and turned it into one table for you here, listed in order of milligrams of caffeine. Just click the image to see it full size.

Sorry, Sam. I win this argument. Red Bull doesn’t really contain all that much caffeine. But wow, Starbucks packs it in, don’t they? Even so, you can have one coffee grande at Starbucks every day. It might give you the jitters, but it seems safe from what I gather. According to the Mayo Clinic, you could therefore drink around 5 or 6 Red Bulls in a day and it won’t harm you. That would be extreme, and I don’t recommend it, but that would be less than 500 mg of caffeine in the day.

So, while we learned about caffeine content today, I hope you will also remember, not every news story is solid fact and truth. Not every study is done properly, and even if it is, it is only one study. More would need to be done to corroborate the evidence found.

People, news outlets, news networks, TV networks, churches, doctors doing studies and whoever gives funding, all of them, have their own agenda. Propaganda is rampant. Your only recourse is to be skeptical and question the information instead of accepting everything you hear as “gospel truth.”

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Here at Believers Anonymous, I want create a place for folks with a “believing problem” to be able to easily find resources, whether that be an article that concisely talks about atheism, opinions and “testimonies” of other people finding their way, or well, just about anything that might be helpful to you.

This is a journey for me as well, because, while I’ve been an atheist for a long time, I’ve come to feel that I need to be a bit more proactive about my lack of faith. Hence the creation of this site, obviously. I’m comfortable in my godlessness, but you might need facts, information and/or support to help you with your beliefs. That information isn’t always easy to come by, so it might take awhile.

Anyway, I’m on a Quest for this information. (Any tidbits or suggestions are always welcome, by the way… or help even.. I would love that too!) As I find it, I’ll present it to you as best I can. This brings me to a couple small things I want to talk to you about.

First, a word about polls. In the article about the truths of atheism I just shared with you, Sam Harris refers to several polls that had been done back then in 2006 or earlier. My friend, Hess at The Feeble Lance asked for links to those polls. I tried to find them but didn’t have any luck. Why didn’t I? Because there are over 3,000 polls referenced in the archives of Newsweek, and that’s just for the first one I looked up.

That seems like a lot, doesn’t it? As I scanned them in search of the proverbial needle in the haystack, I noticed that the dates of each article were frequent and that each poll was talked about, in the brief synopsis, like it was rock solid fact.

While it would be nice to know what the country is thinking, a poll of a few thousand people (at most) is certainly not the way to get that information. Study statistics and how polls are taken, and you’ll come to realize they are complete and utter nonsense. Really. They say nothing of facts and the real feelings and thoughts of people.

Polls are carefully crafted word by word by people with degrees in number crunching and manipulation to get the response they are after. Ask a pollster and they’ll tell you that. This drives me crazy because people believe them and listen to them, especially when they agree with a person.

So basically I’m trying to tell you, don’t believe everything you see or hear. Numbers are easily warped and manipulated just like pixels in a photograph can be changed to just about anything and you’d never even know it. Who gets polled anyway? People who are bored, lonely and don’t have Caller ID. That’s who. Polls are fluff and air, nothing more.

Next, a little bit more about Sam Harris. While hunting down the article I just shared with you, I found his website. On his home page, which I just linked you to, he says that he needs volunteer editors for The Scripture Project. This caught my attention and I read up on it and enlisted.

The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, a great resource, is being moved to the Reason Project, which is a Sam Harris undertaking. If you have never seen the SAB, it’s quite a treat. I have had cause to refer to it several times and have it bookmarked. The creator of the SAB/Koran/Book of Mormon has annotated those works with comments throughout where there are contradictions in the text, intolerance, cruelty, injustice, absurdity, and so on. The Scripture Project is going to transfer that and refine and expand it.

I must admit, it’s a bit selfish of me to volunteer for this, because I have an interest in the bible and its absurdities, and also want to bring such information to you. At any rate, I edited my first page today, and hope I can be of some use to the endeavor.

If you’re interested, go here to Sam Harris’ site to look into it further.

That wraps it up for now, have a great day!

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I’ve just spent the last 2 days looking for information on something that I think will be helpful to you. It’s about the symbols and stories of christianity and how many if not all of them are merely taken from other earlier religions and myths.

While I know that such things as the cross, the fish symbol, wedding rings, the virgin birth, the resurrection, the trinity, the crucifixion, the theft of all the pagan holidays, the christian vestments and the baptism were all stolen, I don’t have any cold hard facts to cite for you.

I’ve found several sources. Unfortunately they are either laden with agenda and biased, or simply not cited and lacking any validity. While most of those sources basically say the same thing, that doesn’t make it fact.

This might be one of those areas where there just isn’t a lot of hard evidence. This is stuff that happened thousands of years ago, not to mention that pagan religions and myths were targeted by the church in an attempt to get rid of them during the Dark Ages and at other periods. Also the original texts of the bible have been cut and edited, rewritten and improperly translated so they aren’t all that reliable either.

So, I’m on a Quest of biblical proportions (pun intended) to hunt down some great historical information for you. If you happen to have wonderful texts sitting quietly on your shelves, secret stashes of links to great sites that contain hidden treasures of historical facts, or anything else that might be useful, please comment or email me at heavingdeadcats@gmail.com

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