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   Instead, and even worse, there are criminal studies showing that the more   
   religious one is, the more likely they are to be bigoted, intolerant, and   
   abusive, favoring violent vengeance over rehabilitation or restitution.   
   Comparative amount analysis of child molesters even decades ago showed this   
   statistically: the more religious an abuser is, the more abusive they were,   
   with more and younger victims. Whereas programs like the clergy project   
   reveal that when people stop believing, they become more tolerant, more   
   curious, liberal, less bigoted and judgmental.   
      
   And why are so many people leaving religion? Because of the fact that all   
   the world’s religions combined can’t even show that there’s a there   
   “there”, that there is anything supernatural at all. There’s no   
   discernible, verifiable truth to any supernatural place, just subjective   
   impressions and baseless assumptions. Any claim of facts in evidence of the   
   divine or of anything supernatural always turns out to be nothing but   
   frauds, falsehoods, and fallacies, which ought to matter to you if the   
   truth matters to you at all, if you want to understand knowledge as   
   distinguished from make-believe.   
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   Yet all the major religions require faith instead, where you’re supposed to   
   believe whatever they said simply because they said so. I think all of us   
   would agree that faith healers and self-described exorcists are famously   
   fraudulent, yet we ignore that Jesus was running the same game as they are,   
   just another superstitious cult leader. The people who have dedicated   
   decades of their lives to the study of near-death experiences have lost   
   faith even in that, coming away admitting that there’s still no substance   
   to it after all this time, over half a century, and there’s still very few   
   cases without a clear explanation. That’s not what they predicted 50 years   
   ago, and the failure there, according to all of the neuroscientists, neural   
   philosophers, and brain surgeons I’ve listened to, is the fact that there   
   is no support for mind-body dualism, neither in neuroscience nor even in   
   philosophy.   
      
   It’s not just that there’s no evidence right where it should be, right   
   where it would be if we had an animating immortal spirit; it’s that we have   
   so much evidence against it to confidently conclude that we don’t have   
   souls. Without an immortal supernatural soul, there can’t be an afterlife,   
   thus no heaven or hell, and without them, the notion of a God is largely   
   moot. This doesn’t make a lot of difference in Islam, since the Quran talks   
   about a physical heaven where our bodies will be reanimated such that we   
   will still require food even in hell, where roughly 80 percent of the world   
   would spend eternity if Islam was correct. Fortunately, Islam is not   
   correct; there is no hell, and God doesn’t operate an invisible hotel in   
   the expanse of the non-existent firmament either. Regardless of what God or   
   religion it is, hell is inconsistent with God. If there was a God, there   
   still wouldn’t be a hell because no God would allow it.   
      
   If we are to believe what the scriptures say about God being infinitely   
   merciful and just, those two are already in contradiction with each other   
   and both contradict the description of God as a righteous judge having   
   wisdom or love or any of that, which contradicts everything required to   
   torture everyone mercilessly, relentlessly, forever and ever over a thought   
   crime. The Quran repeatedly says that simply believing equals doing good   
   and that not believing equals doing evil. So Islam is just like   
   Christianity in that we are not judged on morality but on gullibility   
   because we are judged and damned forever over what or whether we believed.   
   And hell would still be grossly unjust even if we knew God existed.   
      
   We have no evidence to compel beliefs, so hell becomes exponentially worse.   
   No God would want or allow something so petty and vindictive, and such is   
   obviously just an excuse that theologians made up so that those who didn’t   
   believe in the impossible promise of a posthumous reward might believe in   
   the threat of a fate worse than death if they don’t believe, for the   
   purpose, of course, being the manipulation of the masses toward the   
   ultimate goal of enriching and empowering the clergy. This is only   
   circumstantial evidence against God, but it’s worth mentioning.   
      
   This is especially bad in Islam because the Quran says a few times that God   
   decides who will believe and who won’t, so we don’t even have free will;   
   instead, we submit to God’s will as if we’re just his playthings, and he’s   
   going to punish us for whatever he forced us to do. Thus, belief in God is   
   inconsistent with both free will and objective morality, which is a   
   contradiction of two of the most popular reasons Believers cite for why   
   they believe and why we should believe.   
      
   And note that their most popular reasons for believing have nothing to do   
   with evidence; again, as always, belief is assumed in lieu of evidence and   
   maintained despite all evidence to the contrary. Evidence is a body of   
   facts, objectively verifiable data indicating one conclusion or eliminating   
   another. If the truth is what the facts are, then there is no significant   
   or spiritual truth in any religious doctrine, but there are a hell of a lot   
   of lies in all of them.   
      
   Thus, we have nothing at all to imply that there even could be a God, but   
   ample evidence everywhere to show that God is a fantasy, phantasm, nothing   
   more than wishful thinking. The holy doctrines of the various religions   
   remain the only source of information of who or what God is supposed to be,   
   and they violently contradict each other. This is another fact against God;   
   each of these tomes is individually full of absurdities and atrocities,   
   inconsistencies and contradictions, so that none of the authors of these   
   myths and legends actually knows what they’re talking about. Nearly   
   anything any of the scriptures says falls into one of two categories: it’s   
   either not evidently true, meaning there’s no evidence for it, or it’s   
   evidently not true, meaning it’s already been shown to be false.   
      
   The fact that the Bible and Quran and all the rest of this man-made   
   mythology even exists in such defective, conflicting condition is evidence   
   against God, who should have corrected all that. And despite all attempts   
   at philosophical rationalization, there is no actual factual evidence of   
   God outside of scripture either. Literally, not even a possibility to   
   consider the claim that an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving Creator   
   God exists is logically inconsistent and paradoxical due to the presence of   
   suffering in the world. In a world that is, as Darwin described it, red in   
   tooth and claw, the persistent existence of such a level of suffering   
   throughout the years’ history, as well as the extent of that history,   
   remains in conflict with the attributes attributed to such a God. Moreover,   
   considering the lack of logically coherent, verifiable evidence for the   
   existence of the Abrahamic God specifically, it is reasonable to conclude   
   that the claims of such a deity are just a myth.   
      
   It is essential to adhere to the fundamental principles of logic, which   
   necessitate evidence and demonstrability when affirming the truth of a   
   claim. Holding an absolute positive belief in anything, let alone something   
   that lacks reliably verifiable truth or proof, rather violates these   
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)