Michael

At least according to Catholic doctrine, atheists get to go to heaven. From the Second Vatican Council, in Chapter 1 of the Lumen Gentium (The Light of Humanity), the paragraph reads:

The non-Christian may not be blamed for his ignorance of Christ and his Church; salvation is open to him also, if he seeks God sincerely and if he follows the commands of his conscience, for through this means the Holy Ghost acts upon all men; this divine action is not confined within the limited boundaries of the visible Church.

It sure seems that someone who follows his or her conscience rather than some irrelevant holy law also gets to go to heaven. It doesn't say anything about actually believing in a holy spirit. Who ever would have believed that thinking for yourself could lead to religious salvation?

Has anyone tried tie dyeing with zip ties? I am dyeing some bed linens and rubber bands just won't work.

The first rule of Tautology Club is the first rule of Tautology Club!

I don't thank god for sunshine

I don't thank god for rain

I don't thank god for curing the sick

and I don't curse god for pain

I don't thank god for sparing me when the world comes to an end

I don't thank god for anything because I don't have invisible friends

I don't thank god for touchdowns

I don't thank god for wins

I don't thank god for feathers on birds

Or for giving fish their fins

I don't thank god for riches, like a tricked out Mercedes Benz

I don't thank god for anything because I don't have invisible friends

I don't thank god for babies

That's just biology

I don't thank god for happiness and love

That's brain physiology

I don't see god like others do, through a rose-colored lens

In fact I see no god at all because I don't have invisible friends

Note the double-entendre

Big Bang Theory is rooted in astronomical observations and logical extrapolations.

When we point our most powerful telescopes skyward, from our inertial frame of reference, we can see that every star and every galaxy is in motion. Furthermore, thanks to the Doppler Effect (look it up yourself) it can also be seen that everything is not only in motion, everything is moving away from everything else. The universe and space itself must be expanding to accommodate this movement.

If everything is moving away from everything else, that means that today everything is (albeit marginally) farther away from other things than they were yesterday. If we turn back the clock a month, they were even closer. Turn the clock back a few thousand years and everything is even closer. Now, let's go back millions and even billions of years. As we turn back the clock, the universe gets smaller and smaller until it's the size of our sun. Back farther and it's the size of a small moon, a beach ball, a golf ball, a raindrop, the head of a pin.

Going back about 14-17 billion years, everything in the universe was packed into an incredibly hot, dense mass no larger than a single electron. Within the first nanoseconds of the clock moving forward, the tiny singularity that held our entire universe exploded. The effects of that explosion are what we see today

It was neither "big" because there was no space, nor was it a "bang" because there was no air to carry noise. But in that moment, all the energy and all the forces in our universe were created. Those forces form and destroy stars. At different times in their lifecycle, stars form all the elements as we know them.

That is the gist of big bang theory. No one set out to "disprove" the biblical account of creation. As I wrote above, big bang theory is based on observation and it's the most widely accepted explanation of the facts.

If someone wants to work god into the mix and declare that god was the "prime mover" that "sparked" the big bang, that is fine, but there is no evidence to support it. There is however, plenty of evidence for the big bang. Why do you suppose that some folks choose to be ignorant of the facts?

How is it that out of hundreds of billions of believers, god and/or the holy spirit never managed to inspire a marginally competent editor for the bible? Contradictions, weak story, unrealistic timeline and blatantly plagiarized ideas. It's a mess of a fiction book and certainly should not be considered a reference work.

If the bible is true, why are there so many sects and factions that proclaim the truth of the bible, yet disagree with each other's interpretation?

So, not allowing gays to marry? What is it about pastels and show tunes that you find objectionable?

I don't get the logic behind thinking that if someone doesn't share the christian faith, then by default they worship satan. Worse, even if someone has zero belief in anything supernatural, christians still characterize them as satanists. Would someone explain this to me?

If you heard of a super-rich guy with crazy ideas and goofy practices where he makes people compete to be his lackey, but you never saw him, would you believe such a character was real?

No TV appearances, no newspapers or tabloids, no photos. Just stories and a How-to-get-rich-like-me pamphlet.

I am ardently atheist.

I live every day surrounded by long time friends and a loving family. I have a job where my hard work is recognized and rewarded. I am a lifelong learner and I never pass an opportunity to tell a loved one how grateful I am for them. I believe in equality for all.

I manage all of this without any belief in or need for a deity. There is nothing missing or wrong. I have all that I want and I want all that I have. I didn't pray for it, I worked for it and earned it.

There are many more like me. Given all of this, it perplexes me that some people think that my way of life is somehow wrong or incomplete because I have no need for a belief in a god, a soul or an afterlife.

If someone has a need for a religion, I do not stand in their way. But why anyone would see me and my way of life as a threat is oddest thing.

A research team has officially created the first artificial organism. Aside from the many positive implications this has for medicine and the production of sustainable fuels, I'd like to know what this community thinks about the demonstration that life is no more and no less than complex chemicals reacting with one another. Nothing divine about it, it's just chemistry.

Yay Biology!

Source: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci...

I don't thank god for touchdowns

I don't thank god for rain

I don't thank god for curing the sick

I don't curse god for pain

I don't beg god to spare me

When the the world comes to an end

I don't thank god for anything

Because I don't have invisible friends

I don't thank god for home runs

I don't thank god for wins

I don't thank god for feathers on birds

or for giving fish their fins

I don't beg god for riches

like a tricked out Mercedes Benz

I don't thank god for anything

because I don't have invisible friends