Why Our Brains Tell Us There Is A God

All of us science-based thinkers know how difficult it is to dissuade people from accepting their intuition over the findings of science. There is no greater example of this than the issue of claiming God communicates with us personally/one-on-one. The last segment of a recent podcast from the Freedom From Religion Foundation focuses on the latest information on the subject by interviewing scientist and author John C. Wathey about his new book, The Phantom God: What Neuroscience Reveals about the Compulsion to Believe: "Wathey argues that the feeling of God’s presence is spawned by innate neural circuitry, similar to the mechanism that compels an infant to cry out for its mother. In an adult, this circuitry can be activated under conditions that mimic the extreme desperation and helplessness of infancy, generating the compelling illusion of the presence of a loving, powerful, and all-knowing savior. When seen from this perspective, the illusion also appears remarkably like one that has long been familiar to neurologists: the phantom limb of the amputee, spawned by the expectation of the patient’s brain that the missing limb should still be there."

Click on the link below for the podcast segment (timestamp approximately at 25:00):

Phantom God

Secular Morality Wins

One of the hardest facts for the religious to accept is that secular morality trumps any religious dogma regarding such. Phil Zuckerman, Associate Dean as well as Professor of Sociology at Pitzer College, and the founding chair of the nation’s first Secular Studies Program gave the following talk at the recent Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) annual conference in Boston, MA. Click on the link below for a 30-min presentation in support of this claim:

How Secular Morality Will Save the World

Judge Kavanaugh And Originalism

"There are clear parallels between originalism and conservative Christianity, including purity, textualism, and sanctimony. Perhaps not coincidentally, many originalist judges are highly and conservatively religious. Scalia believed in a literal devil, Thomas is a devout and conservative Catholic, as are Roberts and Alito. Gorsuch is probably a conservative Episcopalian, a close relation to the Catholic Church. The selective reverence for text above common sense, and in some cases common decency, is perhaps the strongest parallel. But so is the element of heresy. Originalist judges tend to treat other judges like jurisprudential heretics."

Hypocrisy, God, and the Originalism of Judge Kavanaugh

Protecting Church-State Separation Is Not Hate

The FFRF, or the Freedom From Religion Foundation, is dedicated to "protecting the constitutional principle of the separation of state and church."  I recently was "unfriended" on Facebook when I challenged the person's public media assertion that the FFRF is a "Hate Group."  I challenge anyone to provide evidence that the FFRF, any of its staff or its volunteers, has ever written or spoken with hate towards any religious group.