How We Pay Attention To The Present

We Are Free To Burn The Qur’an Or Any Other Book, And To Criticize Muhammad Or Any Other Human Being. Let No One Forget It.

While Believing Strongly, Without Evidence, Is Considered A Mark Of Madness Or Stupidity In Any Other Area Of Our Lives, Faith In God Still Holds Immense Prestige In Our Society. Religion Is The One Area Of Our Discourse Where It Is Considered Noble To Pretend To Be Certain About Things No Human Being Could Possibly Be Certain About. It Is Telling That This Aura Of Nobility Extends Only To Those Faiths That Still Have Many Subscribers. Anyone Caught Worshipping Poseidon, Even At Sea, Will Be Thought Insane.

It Is Terrible That We All Die And Lose Everything We Love; It Is Doubly Terrible That So Many Human Beings Suffer Needlessly While Alive. That So Much Of This Suffering Can Be Directly Attributed To Religion—to Religious Hatreds, Religious Wars, Religious Delusions And Religious Diversions Of Scarce Resources—is What Makes Atheism A Moral And Intellectual Necessity.

You Don't Get Anything Worth Getting, By Pretending To Know Things You Don't Know.

It Is Safe To Say That Almost Every Person Living In New Orleans At The Moment Hurricane Katrina Struck Shared Your Belief In An Omnipotent, Omniscient, And Compassionate God. But What Was God Doing While Katrina Laid Waste To Their City? Surely He Heard The Prayers Of Those Elderly Men And Women Who Fled The Rising Waters For The Safety Of Their Attics, Only To Be Slowly Drowned There.