From tolerance to totalitarianism: A review

Kamila's dad sent her a PDF of an article from a Polish newpaper, an anti-abortion, conspiracy theory laden magazine that also recently printed an article about how homosexuality is a choice. The translation isn't perfect, but it is good enough to understand with a little help from Kamila.

These are my comments as noted down while reading the article:

The first few paragraphs are talking about Nazis and communists, not for any logical reason, but a blatant attempt at emotional blackmail.

"You have to remember that Christianity is the most persecuted religious-sumption of the world, it is estimated that from the time of Christ To this day some 70 million Christians have been murdered because of their different faith, with half of the twentieth century." - Mostly by other christians. Forgetting that since the time of Christ, christians have done most of the killing.

Then some nonsense about atheists. Then back to Nazis and Marxists. So far, nothing to do with homosexuals other than vague references to the church's teachings. Apparently nobody cares about how evil communism is any more, there are less books on it.

That's all there is for the first 1914 words. It's like a Coke ad that consists of 90% women in bikini's to prime you for the image of a Coke can and then it's done. Hypocritically, they whine about propaganda throughout.

Now for a bit of chat about the gays:

"The publications and pronouncements of absurdities and lies of the homosexual lobby social wove a priest with a number of attacks and hostility from the 'tolerant environment.' "

It doesn't really say what lies are being told, but does mention that people are abusive and threatening to him on Facebook. It may not be a very productive way to talk to the guy, but considering he accuses homosexuals of being paedophiles and actively fights for their oppression, I think he deserves a bit of swearing. I doubt anyone has ever actually physically attacked him.

It's fairly common for right-wing protesters to provoke LGBT parades and then claim innocence.

Back to Hitler and Stalin. He thinks that, because there is some violence at LGBT parades, they will turn on the general population when they 'take control' just like Hitler did. This is how they will go from tolerance to totalitarianism. Of course, the hypocrisy here is that he praises those who used violence to fight off genuine oppressors and then complains that homosexuals use violence against the people that oppress them.

"And in this environment, the case is clear, homosexuality is a medical disaster."

The old "most gays have AIDs argument". Africans are also at very high risk of AIDs, but the church is supporting that, not trying to stop them. They only acknowledge that sociological factors exist when it suits them.

Back to Nazis again...

Finally, some use of the word science. It only took 3000 words about Nazis to get to something resembling evidence.

"Anatomy of sex itself is such a nightmare, that of medical causes terrible drain ginseng. Completion of the gastrointestinal tract is not used to this, and indeed, the poor are the ones who are not able to comprehend. Similarly, the poor are "scientists" who, despite these alarming data argue that homosexuality is not any anomaly. But man, as a scientist, if you have bad faith, can not live a lie so big."

Ignoring the bad translation, this still makes no sense. The only data he has mentioned so far is 'more AIDs', but then he twists it with some medical nonsense and repeats.

"The truth of this environment is clear in their attitudinal to trade. Homolobby demanding to enter into relationships, so-called homosexual marriages, and while in Germany, where they have been for 12 years the opportunity, do not want to use it. Homosexuals are only half a per mille of all, it's only about one in two thousand (!). In addition, they are the most unfaithful, break down frequently and quickly."

To translate: In a place where people don't give much of a shit about marriage, the few gays that bother to marry get divorced a lot.

Big deal. That isn't a good reason to refuse them the right to marriage. Maybe they're just more honest? Oh, and it's not marriage. So that part was a lie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_of_same-sex_unions_in_Germany

Actual data suggests that same-sex marriages or partnerships are less prone to divorce. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_of_same-sex_couples

He also complains that the average number of sexual partners for a homosexual man is 8. Which is actually lower than a large number of research papers would suggest is average: http://www.datehookup.com/content-sexual-averages-what-is-normal.htm

He says that the number of partners is high because 'they loathe themselves and each other'.

Now for the really sick lies:

Gays account for 40% of all paedophiles.

This number is usually gained by taking the number of male on male child sexual abuse cases and comparing them to the number of male to female child sexual abuse cases. This is easily dismissed as the motivation for child abuse is not adult sexual orientation. Most child abusers have not developed an adult sexual orientation and can not be considered either straight or gay. So the percentage of homosexual paedophiles is actually 0%.

http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_molestation.html

What does he think causes this?

"How seriously disturbed the people of this circle, the exhibit also sex education programs voltage-ted by the principles of gender ideology and has already introduced into schools in some Western countries. According to them, the norm should be teaching masturbation in kindergarten and full sex life in elementary school. According to Satanic principles: depravaty and Atheisation through sexualization."

Now, given that the reality of same-sex relationships is almost the opposite of his opinion, I guess we should thanks Satan and atheists for sex education.

"We had cases in the United States, France, the United Kingdom, where children were raped and molested by their homosexual adoptive parents and were left without support from social workers, police, and of journalists, because nobody wants to put homolobby on trial, they sacrifice children."

No evidence for this is provided. It's safe to assume that most of the cases they are talking about men in hetero relationships abusing young boys, which as we know does not class as homosexual.

And that's it. Over 4500 words of very little, mostly Nazis and Communists, then some lies. That's pretty much all they have. Every other argument is based on the same idea, they say they're protecting children but with information that contradicts reality.

It's not harmless, it's never harmless, these people vote and a vote is all it takes to ruin people's lives.

The next round.

Mateusz seems to be quite proud of how well he's doing. As usual we have claims of attacks and persecution, as if he was on the side of good. We have claims of 'mis-understanding christianity', which is easy to do when they change what it means to suit their current argument. Of course, his side is just as aggressive and far more foul than mine, but he like to play martyr. Oh, that's not an atheist misconception about catholics as he's previously stated, he actually does it in his closing paragraphs. Anyone, on with the usual format of his words in bold and my rebuttal.

“Your statements are quite emotional, at times aggressive and arrogant. You are trying to humiliate me and accuse me of terrible things. I do not quite understand why my views and arguments cause with such emotions in a rational thinking atheist - well - apparently it must be so. I will try to answer this calmly and objectively to your accusations against me.” – I’m answering this last, so I already know you were just as emotional and as insulting as I was. I also still think you fully deserve the tone and attitude. I justify my emotion at the end, based on your writing. I do not believe I was arrogant, my confidence in my views is well supported.

“Let me start with the issue of AIDS in Africa, especially Uganda, which przytoczyłeś. Unfortunately, You shot yourself in the foot, just because it shows Africa well on condoms and AIDS epidemic, rather I am right and you are not.”

Well, you don’t really do very well here, let’s start with the research by Dr Norman Hearst, pretty much the only scientist to side with you.

This man is against almost the entire scientific community. I can easily explain why he is wrong:  Although we know that condom use alone will not stop spread of HIV, with such a high number of sufferers then it can still spread even with condom use, we also know that condoms are not ineffective and are a major part of reducing the spread of HIV. Obviously, if everyone in Africa was abstinent, then the disease would die out much more quickly. The issue is that this will never happen, it is spreading because people are being told that condoms should never be used and spread HIV and are still having sex. Again, correlation does not mean causation. You keep agreeing with that, then using correlation. There is a clear reason why you can only find one study to support you, because you can find one study that says it proves almost anything. The important thing is to have peer-reviewed data. Why do I need to repeat this?

Just making the point that abstinence stops the spread of HIV is missing the point. On an individual level, condoms are very effective. In a place where HIV is widespread, there is more inherent risk. The correct solution to stopping the spread of HIV is not just abstinence, because people will simply not be abstinent, a much broader view needs to be taken. The reasons why Africa has this issue is a very socio-economic one. My point that “Condoms spread AIDS and are ineffective” is a lie, has been proven repeatedly.

The link doesn’t show any data I can use.

Point 3 to 12   Less sex reduces HIV. I know this. So what?  You seem to be under the impression that my side of the argument is “Just give people condoms and they can have as much sex as they want, with whomever they want”, this is completely wrong. I agree with you that abstinence and fidelity in the face of such a high risk of infection are a huge part of the solution. But condoms are also a very good way to lower the risk if people do not wish to be abstinent. Proving that widespread condom distribution on it’s own doesn’t work very well is not needed.

As for the rest of the discussion on condoms, you’re either arguing against a point I didn’t make or making stuff up. Your idea that “condoms aren’t 100% effective, so sex education is bad” makes no sense. My argument is that you are removing the freedom from people to make their own decisions, something that is the basis of the homosexuality discussion too. You would rather lie to children than let them decide to take a risk if they choose.

You have said that:

“I will tell my daughter that condoms do not protect adequately from AIDS, every time you have sex with a condom is still risking HIV. I will tell her that only abstinence and fidelity are capable of 100% protecting her from the dangers/risks associated with sex. And I will do is exactly to protect her.  Do you call this ‘hiding of necessary information’? “

Two mistakes there. Firstly, condoms do not contain HIV, you have to have sex with someone who has it to risk infection. Secondly, marriage doesn’t cure HIV. So not only is that incorrect, it is a very narrow and inadequate view.

Instead of focusing on condom use, why not tell me what else you think is harmful about sex education?

Next, you move on to the traditional family. You say that it is obvious that you don’t think traditional marriage includes obedience from your wife etc. Why is this obvious? Which ‘tradition’ are you talking about? Biblical marriage included such reasoning; this thinking has changed very recently, certainly not long enough ago for it to be considered ‘traditional’.

I understand that you don’t see these things as part of ‘traditional marriage’, my question was ‘why not?’ They are traditional, are they not? I was simply demonstrating another example of selective memory. You think that the parts of tradition you want are sacred, the parts you either don’t agree with (or even the some that you want but couldn’t get away with) are forgotten.

Then you mis-understand the maths lesson. It was condescending because I was teaching something simple to a grown up.

Now back to sex again. You say that you want to tell people the truth that abstinence is the only way to prevent infection or pregnancy 100%. Then why argue against sex education? Remember that you were the one protesting against teaching kids about sex, not me.

On sexual repression: Yes, it is the exact opposite of an entire lack of control and sexual addiction. The same way that anorexia is the opposite of over eating. As usual, you are blind to the middle ground of rational behaviour.

Now we hit the crazy stuff. First of all, sexual abuse, paedophilia and homosexuality are not the same thing. This quote “This may explain to demand the rights of gay couples to adopt children. Perhaps some of them want to educate themselves sex objects.” is the most bigoted and offensive nonsense you’ve said so far. You claim moral superiority over me and spout rubbish like this? You wonder why I’m condescending and get angry at you? Every part of this paragraph is clichéd bullshit. You should be ashamed of yourself.

You still don’t see the parallel between equal rights for homosexuals and equal rights for others. You spout the same pathetic arguments that were used to keep women and other races oppressed for most of history. You still call it a disease and perverse but without any actual reasoning, two humans want to marry and you compare it marrying a chair.

Next, intangible nonsense: “But love is a phenomenon that goes beyond the purely biological description.” No it isn’t. Also, the proof of love is infinitely better than the proof of god. I have more than 5 years of primary source evidence that Kamila loves me, she could be lying, but there is no evidence of that and I trust her because of the evidence. There is no primary source evidence for a god.

You asked some questions:

Why(for what purpose) do you live? This isn’t really a scientific question
What is the sense meaning of your life? Scientifically, my life has no meaning. I give my life meaning myself.
Why do you exist and why does the world exist? Because that’s what happens when you give a lot of hydrogen 13.75 ± 0.17 billion years to do stuff.
What is going to happen to you after death? The universe will continue for many billions of years, probably until heat death occurs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe

Answer those questions in a scientific way.

Religion has not answered these questions truthfully. Again, you quote goodness and love as somehow beyond science, which is rubbish. You don’t understand the difference between scientific theory that needs to be updated and simple right and wrong. Scientific theory evolves over time and parts of a theory can change with new data. A perfect example of this is gravity. Have you ever seen gravity? No, you can only see its effects. Can scientists see gravity? No, they are in the same situation. Does that disprove gravity? No. We know gravity exists, it’s the same with love and goodness. We don’t need any sort of god theory to explain any of those things. Love is a combination, in differing degrees, of various scientifically study-able theories. The primary contributors are biological/chemical and psychological factors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chemical_basis_of_love.png

You claim “for example, that the human species evolve, which in terms of probability and complexity is basically impossible” is a complete mis-understanding of the science and maths.

http://space.mit.edu/~kcooksey/teaching/AY5/MisconceptionsabouttheBigBang_ScientificAmerican.pdf

The observable universe is 46 billion light years, containing roughly 100 billion galaxies. Galaxies contain between 10 million and 1 trillion stars. A very rough estimate would give us 300 sextillion stars. That is 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. We know of one that has a rock with intelligent life on it. So, even though the conditions for life are so specific that they make the probability of life very low, the sheer number of planets makes it almost certain that life exists/existed on other planets. Think of the chances of winning the UK lottery, 14 million to one. Then think of how many times you could win the jackpot if you had a billion tickets.

“For certain you have your, atheistic answer to these questions, the believers have their own. Neither one nor the other are "scientific" in the sense of how you understand the science. So do not usurp the right to "scientific" debunking religious faith, because you do not have as to jurisdiction.”

Of course science has more values in these matters. The issue is not that science can’t tell us why, only how. There is no why in the sense that you want. That is our answer and it is not equally valid with your explanation, your explanation has no basis other than imagination, science has hundreds of years of observed evidence that has continuously contradicted church teachings. You only think these questions exist because you don’t understand that we have all

“do not know why there is a world and man, do not know what happens to the human soul after death”

We know how the world and man appeared, there doesn’t have to be an external force to give it a ‘why’. As for ‘the human soul after death’, show us a soul, or any primary evidence of its mechanisms and we’ll try to explain. Oh yeah, it’s intangible it can’t be proven. Then how do know it exists? Without any proof it no more exists than unicorns or leprechauns.

“Christianity certainly has created what we now call "Western civilization", "human rights" "humanitarianism," "the dignity and worth of human life." Were it not for Christianity, you do not even know these concepts because żyłbyś in one of the barbarian cultures.”

Rubbish. The catholic church is still fighting against "Western civilization", "human rights" "humanitarianism," "the dignity and worth of human life." The church only falls in line with secular society after the fact because it doesn’t want people to stop going to church. This very argument is about you wanting to oppose equal rights. So, rather than looks at the many, many examples of the terrible things that have been done (because you’ll just attribute them to human flaws, only good things come from god), we should look at what christianity teaches in the bible.

"Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." (I Timothy 2:11-14)

Ephesians 5:22-24         Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

"But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God." (I Corinthians 11:3)

"A silent and loving woman is a gift of the Lord: and there is nothing so much worth as a mind well instructed. A shamefaced and faithful woman is a double grace, and her continent mind cannot be valued." (Eccles. 26:14-15)

That’s a small sample of the teachings of the bible and only on one subject. The moral teachings of the catholic church that are actually good morals are no more than other societies have managed without the church. Japan has had almost no influence from Christianity, yet they are not barbarians. Certainly no more than Christians anyway.

“But I am not questioning evolution.“

You did.

“My view of God's existence implies that the rational being can not arise of being irrational (which is matter, nature, evolution, etc.).  Atheists proclaim the irrational view that the wise man was blind as a result of mindless evolution of nature. Other atheists do not distinguish human from the animal in terms of quality.”

The theory of evolution is as solid as the theory of gravity. We know they exist and we have incredible amounts of evidence to support our views of how they work. The theories only question the details of the mechanics and in no way question the existence of those mechanics. To suggest that the evolution of man is irrational is exceptionally ignorant. How can I not be condescending when faced with such nonsense? It is absolutely clear that there is no absolute need for a creator in our universe, even most religious scientists agree. The arguments the creationists come up with are easily dismissed.

“And secondly, what in general has to do with it?” – I bring this up because it demonstrates that humans came from the same place that every other animal did. We share a recent common ancestor with apes and, if you go far enough back, we share a common ancestor with trees. All this talk of love and good making us different is bullshit. Evolution demonstrates very clearly that there is no need to for a god us to exist. It shows that your belief that humans have special qualities is untrue. Evolution explains love, thought and emotions, even if we don’t know everything about the history of it. It is yet another example of my stack of historic evidence against your imaginary, intangible theology.

“Dawkins is certainly a prominent biologist. However, his theories and claims about Christianity are simply absurd, which says many scientists - even atheists.” – You’ve given me name, Terry Eagleton. I’ve found the critique you’re referring to. I’m going to read it now. I guess you’ve read both too? Of course you have, you wouldn’t just be assuming things with actually knowing, would you? We can go through those criticisms and address them:

“A molehill of instances out of a mountain of them will have to suffice. Dawkins considers that all faith is blind faith, and that Christian and Muslim children are brought up to believe unquestioningly. Not even the dim-witted clerics who knocked me about at grammar school thought that. “

 Same crap you spout. You yourself have repeatedly said that there is no evidence for god, arguing semantics over the use of the word is stupid. You have no evidence, it is faith. Eagleton harps on for several paragraphs about the difference between blind faith and Christianity. He moves to lying and misrepresenting the catholic view of god, something you do. Changing the goal posts and then claiming that atheists have misunderstood religion is an underhanded and terrible way to argue. He makes claims about Dawkins’ view of god that simply aren’t true. You cannot claim to know the will of god and his promises of an afterlife etc. and at the same time call him ‘unknowable’.

Next, he misrepresents Dawkins and lies about the bible: “Nor does he understand that because God is transcendent of us (which is another way of saying that he did not have to bring us about), he is free of any neurotic need for us and wants simply to be allowed to love us. Dawkins’s God, by contrast, is Satanic. Satan (‘accuser’ in Hebrew) is the misrecognition of God as Big Daddy and punitive judge, and Dawkins’s God is precisely such a repulsive superego.”

Dawkins is referring to the fact that the church, claiming that it is the word of god, issue many, many rules and regulations to its believers. This is undeniable fact. Referring to god in the same way that one refers to any mythical being or fictional character, Dawkins refers to the supposed personality of god as portrayed by scripture. All books of the Abrahamic religions continuously demonstrate that god, jesus, the holy spirit etc. continuously give messages of “don’t do this or I will send you to hell” or “you can only get to heaven if you do this”. So far, Dawkins has not be shown to be incorrect, simply misunderstood.

“Such is Dawkins’s unruffled scientific impartiality that in a book of almost four hundred pages, he can scarcely bring himself to concede that a single human benefit has flowed from religious faith” – A misunderstanding. Dawkins asserts that there is nothing unique about christianity that means the good done in its name could not be done by someone without faith. Morality predates and does not need christianity and therefore, christianity cannot take credit for good deeds done in its name. Taking credit for morality is arrogant and immoral.

“He also holds, against a good deal of the available evidence, that Islamic terrorism is inspired by religion rather than politics.” – I don’t think this guy understood a word Dawkins said. Dawkins point was that Islamic terrorism could not be anywhere near as effective without religion. Sexual repression is used to convince people to sacrifice their lives with the promise of an eternal reward. They could not achieve this without religion.

“Dawkins tends to see religion and fundamentalist religion as one and the same.” – Not true.

The ‘critique’ is pathetic; it contains the same stupid contradictions that The God Delusion was addressing in the first place. It jumps from “God is unknowable and transcendent” to “God revealed himself through Jesus and we know exactly how he wants us to live”. Even a child should be able to see that is contradictory nonsense.

Contrary to your opinion that atheists are misunderstanding religion, my view is that theists are the ones who are misunderstanding atheists and that they are blind to a rational examination of their own beliefs. These arguments against Dawkins are clearly a good example of this. Common mistakes are made, you and he seem unable to differentiate between “we know there is no god” and the actual views of atheists like Dawkins and myself. I’ve explained this before, maybe you’ll address it later in the blog post.

You have both misunderstood other scientists’ arguments against Dawkins. This is a common type of mistake; you take someone who has even a slightly different view and then claim that they disagree with someone entirely. 

“If we do not even know whether we exist we must take it on faith (is not it?) We must assume. So you admit yourself that life is not only hard to guide the premises "scientific," but you make some assumptions that you take arbitrarily. If you accept and believe in something very improbable - ie the fact that we exist (and probably exist, as we speak), why do you think is an irrational belief in the existence of God?”

No, I do not take my existence on faith. I asses the evidence and make a decision, this is the scientific process. I do the same for love. None of this is arbitrary. Irrational is the belief in something with no evidence. Not only is there no evidence for the existence of a god, there is a large amount of evidence that the god you believe in was created by humans.

“Comparison of the bird is completely clash. Because I'm not talking about some specific abilities of the body (flying, swimming, digging trenches in the ground, breathe underwater, etc.) I'm talking about a completely unique abilities, which has only a man - for freedom and understands - and these go beyond the concept of brain function.”

No, you aren’t. You can’t argue from a false premise like that. Love and thought are not uniquely human. Our concepts of love may be unique and more well defined due to our brain size, but they are in no way supernatural. The brains size difference does equate to a bird’s ability to fly, it is an evolutionary effect of natural selection and other factors.

“Hence, however, due to serious consequences - because if a man is just an animal, it does not really have any raison d'etre molarity, no respect for life, man. Therefore, if atheists were consistent and honest would admit that they are not justification for concepts such as value of life, respect for human beings, human rights, etc”

Again, no. This is utter rubbish. I derive my moral from a combination of scientifically analysed information and an evolved internal sense of care for other animals. I eat free range eggs and chickens, fight for equality and human rights and select which charities I donate to based on these factors. As for your morals, I believe them to be immoral. If god gives us morals, then why are my morals different to yours? The reason we are engaged in this argument is because I find you a morally reprehensible person. You have no intelligent reasoning behind your opposition to any of my arguments, I have shown time and time again that you can’t grasp simple concepts and have either lied and twisted yourself or just repeated the lies told to you by others.

“Hence, probably the greatest crimes in human history were made by atheists. “ Offensive lies. Again, you spout the usual Nazi argument, which I have given sufficient proof to refute. This is right-wing propaganda at its worst. Name one great crime in the name in the whole of history that was done in the name of *just* atheism. Your usual bullshit of Stalin etc. do not count, you have admitted yourself that you understand the removal of the church was to replace a supernatural god with a human one.

“Peter Singer, which referring to evolutionary reasons - biologizujących says for example that a child can be killed for the first year of life - why? Because there is still going consciousness. These same by him can not be done with the animal. These are crazy atheistic assumptions about the effects of equality between man and beast.”  - This was a very intelligent thought experiment. The point of which was to promote vegetarianism, you misread “eating animals is like eating babies” as a call to eat babies, not a call to stop eating animals. This shows how exceptionally biased and ignorant of the truth you are.

“So we do not discover any "America" ​​- cites some well known facts and you think that Christians do not know about them - it's ridiculous. “ – What a surprise, you still don’t understand the point. If all other religions are obviously untrue and made by man, why is yours different? We can see from the history of religion at the time that these polytheistic religions were changed to suit the needs of the people at the time. There is no evidence of any information from an external source, especially not a supernatural one. I did not say that these early christians should know about America, I asked why god appears to have given different messages in different parts of the world and sometimes didn’t even bother with some countries. It is so completely obvious this stuff was just made up by people, I find it hard to understand how you could believe it.

“This is another proof that you do not understand Christianity. After all, no one is questioning that, the idea of god has been developed in history – what is more- Christian interpretation of the bible contains the analysis of the contemporary culture, mentality and historical context. I’ll say more – I agree even with that the bible contains myths. All of these are well known facts, out of which you are making a big sensation.”– So you admit that you just make it up as you go along? If the idea of god develops over time, how does that happen? Does god change his mind and society changes to his will? The bible, as I’ve shown previously, demands obedience from women. It is my view that society forced religion to change its views from a humanist moral perspective, how do you explain the change in the churches attitude to women? Please explain how the clear and concise instructions given in scripture can be reinterpreted to mean that women shouldn’t be stoned to death if they refuse to marry their rapist? This is absolute proof that the bible is not a good moral guide and that your morals come from an natural source, rather than a supernatural.

Of course there are people who say that the word of god is not open to interpretation, there are millions who take the bible literally. Large parts of the bible are supposed to be the word of god, it is written that way and pretending you can ‘change your understanding’ is a pathetic cop out after religion is forced to change by society, by the very morals you say I can’t have that disagree with the morals you say are from god. The difference between my accusations and your statement is that you make excuses to try and pretend the bible said the same thing all along and it just took time to realise. What utter nonsense.

How can you agree that the bible contains myth and has changed so much over time, yet still think it is of any value? As a metaphor or guide it is utterly useless, it is morally twisted and barbaric. Of course I am making a big thing out of these things. You and millions of others have dedicated their lives to a fictional book and it has been used over centuries to oppress and kill, even against others who think slightly different things about the same stupid books. I am aggressive against you beliefs in the same way I would be aggressive against any other bigot. I would no more tolerate a racist as I do a homophobe such as yourself.

“Nobody claims, that the faith in god was created in a certain/given time as a ready philosophical system.” – Not sure what this means exactly, Kamila translated it properly and it still doesn’t make sense. I am claiming that your god was created the same way Thor, Ra and all the other gods were created. I have not misunderstood christianity, in fact, I clearly understand it better than you do.

“You go through a lot of trouble to prove (to yourself) that Christianity is a mistake, whereas in fact ‘you ram the open door." It's pretty pathetic. And this indicates what I have said that you have a problem with religion. You say that you fight only with the alleged "grievances" that were supposedly caused by religion on humanity. But your words contradict this statement - you rather fanatically are trying to fight with a God, which after does not exist (does he not?) Do you not think such an attitude as irrational? I do not believe in unicorns, and for this reason so I do not write a book "Imaginary unicorns" or looking for hard evidence of non-existence of unicorns. Understand Your attitude militant atheist is irrational.” -  Hahaha… Back to the fighting with god rubbish. I would fight against unicorns if people were passing unjust laws because unicorns told them to. The reasons for opposing gay marriage and sex education are the same. Your views are dangerous and damaging. My atheism is no more irrational than my a-unicornism. Your brand of imaginary friend is much more dangerous and deserves a much stronger opposition.

"Your unfounded Prejudice of homosexuals is indefensible, you are still repeating the same basic faulty logic That 'They can not have children so they are unnatural'"

And what about this is "illogical"?. Is not it true that the gay relationship is by definition (nature) defective infertile? Deny this?

Homosexual couples cannot produce children without assistance. Your point? This does not make them un-natural. Your pathetic attempts to justify your bigotry have amount to nothing more than pathetic logic and unfounded discrimination. You state that homosexuals are different from other infertile couples but give no logical reasoning. You are still ignoring the major point. It’s none of your business whether they can produce children or not. If they wish to get married, so what? Children do not make any difference. If two people love each other and wish to enter a legal contract, then why do you want to stop them? Comparisons to child abuse are disgusting, ignorant rubbish. You clearly have no morals if you cannot distinguish between any rape and consensual sex between two people.

“This time we really get the impression (perhaps mistaken) that you are a regular fanatic who hates me for my views and faith. It's a shame, because I want us to live in spite of disagreement in peace.”

Although I am not a ‘fanatic’, I am very opposed to your religion and views. To be a fanatic, I would have to be willing to cause harm to you. The reasons for my opposition are rational, intelligent and well thought out with a large body of very empirical evidence behind them. Your views are supported by circular logic, bad logic, mis-understanding and bigotry.

“Fortunately in my country you can still live peacefully, but in Western Europe we have the first signs of anti-Christian totalitarianism, and persecution for their faith. “ – Hopefully this will change when catholicism loses its grip a bit more. I honestly don’t care that much if you see this as totalitarianism and persecution. I’d rather you understood the truth of the situation, but it really doesn’t look like you are capable of rational thought. If you think freedom is the right to impose your belief on others, then I have no sympathy for you. I am fighting for freedom and morals, not you. No harm will come from homosexual marriage or sex education, only good. If you cannot see this, I pity you, but I have to fight you. You stick to your imaginary world where evil atheists want to destroy you, rather than simply stop you hurting others. You can believe that we’re going to hell. You can pretend that Nazis were atheist despite the evidence. You can think we have no morals and that “Both in my country and in the entire Soviet bloc propaganda atheistic Communism fought against religion and religious education by means of repression and coercion” means anything in this argument. It doesn’t.

"Perhaps the return times for the Christian faith that I will have to go to jail - read your accusations against me, I feel that, quite likely." - For most of history, the people who jailed, tortured and killed christians, were other christian denominations or other religions. I have demonstrated in my previous post that your idea of abstinence only education is as effective as no sex education and that sex education protects children. The goals you admit to (there are clearly others) are the same as mine, reducing teen pregnancy and STDs. The argument is over your ignorance on the subject, it appears that I care more about your daughters health than you do.

"One more thing - do you realize that you are only one of many fighting atheists, for whom the world forgets? The Catholic Church has existed for more than two thousand years (and have a great time), despite persecution and attempts to destroy the faith" - A whole two thousand years? That's almost as long as the Egyptians believed in their gods, Judaism too. Well done. Am I supposed to feel threatened by that? Both you and I will die and leave very little mark on history. Only the exceptional leave a mark, I don't think I'm either Mozart or Hitler, do you think you are? Although many of the most famous people throughout history were scientists, many scientists have been forgotten by most people. Science is a collaborative effort. Heart transplants were not invented, they were perfected by many. Those who helped made a lasting impact on humanity. Being remember is not important. People who fight against religious bigotry are well remembered, those who fought against sexism, racism and slavery were fighting against people who believed god was on their side. Not all of them were theists.

"Since the beginning of Christianity, the powerful forces of this world tried to destroy him - first killed the founder - of Christ. Later, his followers were killed." - Actually, we already agreed the bible was myth. This is one of them.

"Politicians, "scientists", philosophers, dictators, totalitarian regimes - all tried to destroy Christianity. Do you realize that you share their fate? Did you know that you will die in obscurity, at most leave after a few anti-religious thought and Christianity will last until the end of the world?" - Putting scientists in parenthesis is pathetic. Christianity will not survive until the end of the world. It may survive until the end of humanity, but that's only if that happens soon. Your religion is dying and you know it. As I've said, the history of attacks we fighting between christian ideologies and other faiths. Occasionally, by those who replaced god with themselves, like Stalin. True, rational atheism has never spoken out against the church in such a way. This time, you can't play martyr, no-one will hurt you or kill you. You can shout oppression and only other bigots will listen. We will educate children. We don't even have to be involved in religious education. Sciences like physics and psychology are amazing tools for removing superstition. Science erodes religions lies; Mikołaj Kopernik used the scientific method to disprove the heliocentric view, it was not a revelation from god. Evolution proved that humans were not created by god. Your religion has not developed a better understanding of god, it has been eroded by the discoveries of science and will continue to do so. We aren't just picking on christianity though, all religion will die.

The threat of "Atheistic regimes"

People who are wrong like to stick to their clichés when arguing against reason, they attack rational thought with their mis-understanding of how the world works. People who use homoeopathic medicine will attack science for thinking it knows everything and that there are still mysteries to be solved. They don't get that scientists know they don't know everything and do know how test to see if something works. The 'things we don't or can't know' argument comes from other wishful thinking groups like psychics, astrologers, the religious, the anti-vaccination morons and so on. As the religion myth is the one I have the most direct contact with, I tend to explain idiocy in that context. The reasoning methods, however, can be applied to all of these other problems.

 Unfortunately, people are very, very good at ignoring evidence when disagrees with their world view and one of the major side effects of this denial is psychological projection.

Projection is "a psychological defense mechanism where a person unconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, such as to other people. Thus, projection involves imagining or projecting the belief that others have those feelings" and it is quite common. It was used as part of the basis for Ludwig Feuerbach's theory that religion was created by humans to cope with their own feelings, an idea which appears to be largely accepted by the sane. Denial (subconscious) occurs in religious debates when the religious person is faced with a fact they can't consciously process without admitting that they were incorrect. This leads to circular reasoning (This is a brief paraphrasing of a debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dr. William Lane Craig):

CH: Why do you think the bible is true?

WLC: Because in the bible it says the disciples believed that Jesus was resurrected, so I do too.

CH: But why do you believe that the bible true?

WLC: Because in the bible it says the disciples believed that Jesus was resurrected, so I do too.

CH: *facepalm*

Although that was the main gist of the argument, he also asserted at least twice, that "most historians say that these are first hand accounts". Which is a factual lie.

Once they have delved in to the arena of denial (painful sounding mixed metaphor, eh?), there a few new areas of nuttiness for them to explore. Projection kicks in once they start attacking the opposition's view point. Here is a recent example of a very common attack on atheism. Sometimes they refer to totalitarian regimes which do take an atheistic standpoint and sometimes they pick ones which weren't. I matters little which one they pick from a defensive position, as the slur is easily refuted, however, I do find it more entertaining which they pick nazism as it can be easily turned back on them. It must take a lot of effort to deny the religious influence on the nazi party. It is far to well documented for a denial to be taken seriously. Of course, there is a bad side to be being dragged in to the nazi debate. it detracts from the simple defence that religious tyranny and atheist tyranny are not equal. Religion has text books which order murder, rape and genocide and can be used to justify (to themselves, obviously) the atrocities committed. Atheism, on the other hand, has no such instruction. The atheism which is used in totalitarian regimes is not true atheism, it simply replaces the established religion with a 'human deity', great examples are China and North Korea. As Richard Dawkins has said many times "you can take logical steps from theism to violence, but there are no logical steps from atheism to violence", my lack of belief in a deity no more compels me to commit violence than my lack of belief in unicorns is likely to make me commit violence.

The projection issues cause the paranoia to increase, the internal conflict between the desire to do good (something I truly believe exists in most religious people) and the desire to stop others acting in a way which makes the believer to feel 'uncomfortable' causes them to accuse others of oppression, totalitarianism etc. They don't seem to grasp the idea that stopping others from living freely is precisely what they are doing and not what atheists, the LGBT community and others are doing. In my recent discussions a collection of studies that totalled tens of thousands of participants in peer-reviewed papers was brushed aside with an accusation of fraud and a link to a newspaper article was given as the alternative. My arguments were referred to as 'ideology', with the implication that the evidence was created to fit my ideas, rather than impartial evidence that simply supports my views, because I was right in the first place.

Studies linking religion and psychology are continuing and things like MRI technology are making those studies more comprehensive. Maybe this will help us on the path to ridding the world of superstition.

The latest discussion

Rather than post this directly to its recipient on facebook, I'm just going to post this here.


"For some agree with me that the risk factors for both the young docianych pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases (ChPDP) are:

- Large number of sexual partners (The higher the risk is rising)

- Undertaking risky, casual, sexual relationships

- Early sexual initiation (the earlier the risk is rising)

- Lack of contraceptive use"

I agree with your four points. However, your assumption that I only support contraception is entirely wrong. Contraception is not effective when used without education; I have said more than once that I support a full and comprehensive sex education.  My argument against abstinence only education is that it lies about the effectiveness of contraception and mis-represents statistics, you have done both of these things in our discussion.

After your four statements, you make the following mistakes:

Promotion and distribution of contraception encourages young people to take risky behaviour, giving a false sense of security – This is incorrect and not a reason to withhold contraception or education about it.

Due to insufficient effectiveness of birth control (it is known that condoms are bad at preventing pregnancy, let alone protect against HIV) – Again, incorrect. Even the statistics you quote show that they are effective, you just don’t understand them. Here is another study that shows condoms to be very effective. Any number above 0% effective will reduce the cases of HIV, which will lead to its eventual disappearance.

< click here >

Also, my main point in this discussion is not that condoms are 100% effective (although, as I will show again later, they are very effective), it is that children and young people should be given the correct information and allowed to choose for themselves. The risk of death while crossing a road is greater than that of catching HIV, but you do not stop your children from crossing the road, you teach them to cross safely by giving them the knowledge required to deal rationally with a dangerous situation and reduce the risk.

You contend that my definition of UK sex education is conservative, whereas you do not believe it is. While it is certainly less conservative than abstinence only, it is still considered conservative by modern standards because of the limited information given and lack of participant involvement. I understand that younger children only need to know some of the basics, but believe that those considered ‘young adults’ should have the chance to talk about their experiences and be given as much information as they need to make the correct decision for them. You have said many times that sex education encourages children to have sex, while the evidence shows otherwise. Sex education leads to first sexual experiences later in life and less bad experiences.

Next, you accuse the study I showed you as being ‘manipulated’ and point out that it did not prove negative effects. Now, this is a direct link to a scientific paper that states that “no professional peer-reviewed journal has found these programs to be broadly effective” at the very beginning. This means that it is as factually correct as you can get, the peer-review system is designed to remove any flaws, bias or other inaccuracies. Also, when you say “no negative effects”, you are misinterpreting the information. The study linked shows that abstinence only education does not cause rates of pregnancy, HIV transmission or sexual behaviour to change from that of no education and does not investigate any other potential ill-effects. However, I would include “that young people who took a pledge were one-third less likely to use contraception when they did become sexually active” as an ill-effect. This means that abstinence only education was shown to be useless.

The term ‘pledges’ is the name given to the students that participate in the abstinence only education. This article refers to several studies, one of which was government funded and “Of the more than 700 federally funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, the evaluation looked at only four programs.  These programs were handpicked to show positive results and they still failed”. This means that government who funded the programs tried to limit the study to get the best results for abstinence only programs and failed. Another study was the result of “13 abstinence-only trials including almost 16,000 students”, which is very good sample size.

The links you provided are simply news articles that either misinterpret results of refer to bad data. Neither of these news reports are anywhere near being as comprehensive and well referenced as the single link I provided. The compare national rates of pregnancy to the use of abstinence only education, with no direct link between them. This is not evidence of anything, correlation does not mean causation. This is a common flaw used repeatedly by people who don’t have any actual evidence, in fact, one of these is an explanation of the article I had already mentioned as discredited.

Again, you quote a bunch of birth rates and abortion rates for different countries. Without context, this information is useless. Higher birth rates can be both positive and negative, abortion rates can clearly be reduced by the sex education I support as it clearly reduces the rate of pregnancy, whereas abstinence only education have been proven to be useless in reducing pregnancy rates.

Now to answer your two questions:

1)      I certainly would not. Condoms are very good at preventing HIV (you have a maths lesson coming which will show you), but obviously not 100%.

2)      No. This is beside the point. Sex education should teach about the dangers of sex.

If you want to see real ill effects of abstinence only education, you don’t look to the US, you look at Africa. < click here > Again, the Bush administration pushes abstinence in Uganda kills thousands of people. In 2005, the pope openly said that condoms helped spread HIV, not prevent it. This was a lie that killed thousands of people. This is part of the reason we are having this conversation, I speak out because mis-information is killing people, thousands of people. If you have any doubt, even the smallest bit, that you are right, you need to investigate. If your aim really is to be ethical, then surely is not ethical to support this?

The spread of HIV in Africa is also caused by the use of dirty needles from drugs. Giving out clean needles lowers death rates. Surely giving out clean needles and trying get people off drugs at the same time is better than letting them die while trying to help them off drugs?

Now on to the issue of protecting children from their parents.

“I have a question for you - because (as you know) I'm homophobic, against sex education and contraception (and I'm going to protect my children from this type of depravity) - do you think that you should protect my children from me and so they should put me in jail or take me to children?”

Yes, I do, I believe you should punished for withholding valuable and potentially life saving information from your daughter. The same way I believe people who refuse blood transfusions for dying relatives should be ignored and punished. Your ethics do override other people’s right to live free. This argument is the basis for all our subjects, you call me names, yet you are on the side that is forcing your beliefs on others. My use of contraception does not affect you, but if you were to stop me using it, that is oppression. A homosexual couple getting married does not affect your life, but when you stop them, that is oppression. Is this really hard to understand? Please explain how these things harm you, if you can.

 You have clearly misunderstood or misrepresented the truth repeatedly and accused me of being on the side of the ‘totalitarian regime’. You are so utterly misguided that such obvious facts can easily be ignored by you. You are clearly on the side of control and withholding information, while I wish to simply give people the best information available and let them choose. How can you be for removing choice from your own daughter and still accuse me of being the bad guy? You still refer to homosexuality, sex education and contraception as ‘depravity’, you use ‘left-wing’ as an insult and still have the nerve to say the things you do to me? Right after you have said that, you then say “Left-wing activists are saying openly that the traditional culture in which society is based on the traditional family is evil“. This is absolute nonsense. I am having trouble understanding how twisted your sense of reality is. This quote is so completely misleading and wrong, it doesn’t even make sense. Of course, I can understand it enough to correct it for you;

“Left-wing activists fight against those who value only the misconception of a traditional family as a valid family and wish to give equal rights to those who do not fit the right-wing ideology.”

Much better. You may have noticed that I referred to the concept of the traditional family as a mis-conception. A little bit of history study and you will find that ‘traditionally’, marriage was very different. It depends on how far back you want to go. Saint Paul considered marriage a last resort for those who could not cope with chastity. Churches were not involved in marriages until the 9^th century. It is my understanding that in Poland it is ‘traditional’ for the groom to offer money or gifts to the bride’s family .  Do you think this tradition has never changed or do you think it was taken more seriously in the past (Although now the gifts are returned, they were not in the past)? Do you allow your wife to speak? I bet you even let her work. Is that traditional? Your refusal to allow others to have equal rights and to withhold valuable information from your own daughter is the real definition of depravity.

“The rest of the totalitarian regimes have used exactly the same argument - each regime has its "scientists" who prove that only he is right. And each regime punished those who did not want to give propaganda.” – Yes, but what you don’t realise is that this describes you, not me. Your misrepresentation to stop progress and the development of society is exactly the same thing you are referring to. I have shown time and again that my information is not wrong and have shown why your information is incorrect. You are ‘the regime’, totalitarian regimes are to stop freedom and control information, which is your point of view. I am asking for equal rights and freedom of information. How many totalitarian regimes were created to give women equal rights rather than stop them getting them? You seem to think that us ‘left wing activists’ are out to destroy your idea of a traditional family, which is utterly wrong. I come from a traditional family and I love them, I have no reason to want that to stop. We are fighting for the right for other families to exist. As for sex education, do you think my aim is to give more children aids? Do think I want to convert children to homosexuality? No. I simply want those who are that way, to live happily. You are on the side that wants to stop them.

So, back to the abstinence. I have already proven, again, that abstinence education does not reduce the amount of sex, pregnancy blah blah blah…

Now for your maths education. Start by looking at this table, you probably got your information from a similar one:< click here >

Looking at the table we can see that the % of women who fall pregnant within one year is typically 15% and would be 2% when used properly. I think that sex education could improve the ‘typical’ number, but I haven’t looked for any evidence. Those numbers match the numbers you stated, yes? So why do I say you’ve misunderstood? Surely they mean that a condom is only effective 85-98% of the time? No. Why? Because those women have probably had sex more than once in that year. So, if each woman in this study had sex once a week using a condom that would make the condom fail, at worst, 15 times out of 5200. That’s a 0.288% failure rate, at best, it works out at 0.038%. That looks  like I was right, doesn’t it?

The availability of, and education about, the other types of contraception would mean that women who regularly have sex can vastly improve their chances again by switching to a better method of contraception and using condoms only to reduce the risk of infection. That would change the results even further, for example, the IUD would only fail 0.00384% of the time.

Again, abstinence may be 100% effective, but it should not be your right to lie and withhold information to encourage it. Also, again, abstinence only education doesn’t actually make people abstinent.

Sexual repression, which is the same as abstinence, has been widely acknowledged to be psychologically harmful. It has been considered, although not thoroughly proven, that sexual repression is the cause of the disproportionate number of priests who sexually abuse children. Although this an extreme example, sexual repression has been linked to neurosis and other disorders. I will provide a link to some evidence at a later date.

“According to my ethics, you can not use another person even if he / she agrees.” – So what? Are other people not allowed to have different ethics?

You say that broken families are very bad for a child. Yes, they are. Marriage, however, does not have much of an effect. The psychological effects on a child when their parents split up are the same whether the parents are married or not. It is the breaking apart of a group and family bonds which causes the damage, not the end of the marriage contract. Do you think that if they stay married but move apart then the child will be unaffected? You need to realise which are the important factors.

It has been proven that it is more damaging for children to live in a family unit when the parents no longer wish to be together than it would be for them to separate.

Again, you have infidelity and sex before marriage mixed up. Infidelity before and during marriage can cause divorce. Neither multiple partners nor having a monogamous relationship before marriage causes higher divorce rates. You’re also forgetting those who do not marry at all. I know couples who have been together most of their lives without getting married and may not do at all, I still think they will stay together.

3)  Why are all evil people atheists?  I’m ignoring this one. Utter nonsense.

Next, homosexuals. You still can’t grasp the concept of natural and still refer to homosexuality as a disease. You have no clue about animals, you think that it’s ok for animals to indulge in cannibalism? Rubbish, cannibalism causes genetic defects, it was the cause of the CJD virus (mad cow disease). This has also been seen in hippos and foxes, causing extreme defects.

Gays are calling loudly for sex education and equal rights the same way women, black people (and other slaves) and every other kind of person that right wing nutcases like you have oppressed in the past. The idea that you think they are wrong to shout for rights disgusts me. Even if you are right (you aren’t), you still should not have the right to stop them getting married.

The Truth – Again, you bring out the same old tired clichés I’ve heard over and over again. You get facts and evidence confused, you apply bad logic and mis-understand situations.

 “The Truth (according to the classical definition of philosophy) is an intellectual assessment of compliance with reality. The reality is, however, richer than what you or I are able to observe and prove.” – So what? That does not give you, or anyone else, the right to fill in the gaps with rubbish. You also cannot know that someone, someday will not have the answers to all of the questions.

“There are a lot of reality in human life that is intangible and unverifiable.” - Like what?  Please explain to me one fact that religion has answered that science cannot. Don’t try love, intelligence, the afterlife or any of that. Science can explain love and intelligence and there is no afterlife, your belief in it comes from nothing more than the fear of death. You have no other reason to think there is. Everything that you describe as ‘intangible and unverifiable’ means that you cannot possibly know it exists. How can you explain this knowledge you have of something that is ‘intangible and unverifiable’?  I expect you’ll say something like ‘I just know it’ or ‘I just feel it’ and I’m sure it feels very real to you. I, however, know that feeling as I’ve had it myself. I know it isn’t real. I know of many people who have experienced religion until quite a late age before realising, amongst other things, that these feelings aren’t god. You can’t dismiss them as ‘not proper christians’, which is something that christians try to do. They truly believed.

You say that the fact that someone loves me cannot be proven as undeniable fact. You are right. So what? What I do have is very large amount of evidence for the idea that some people love me. My parent brought me up and care for me, they visit and they tell me they love me. I have never seen anything to prove otherwise. Kamila moved 1600 miles to be with me and we both show each other that we love each other deeply, I don’t need to guess, I don’t feel insecure that maybe she doesn’t love me, I’m certain she does. It works the same way all my other arguments do, assess the evidence and act in accordance with the best information available. Something you seem unable to do.

“Some animals behave in a manner similar to humans, but it is subject to their self-preservation. They are programmed. In humans, there is reason and freedom (expressed in the ability to decide for themselves against the Władysław ern instincts.)” – Seriously? You still don’t get evolution? What is DNA then? God’s lego? Evolution is as factual as gravity. It exists, we can observe it in lab and can see more historical evidence than we can for most other things. The idea that you could deny it is laughable.

Some people seem to think that a gap in our understanding of evolution means that we cannot be sure it is true. There are bigger gaps in our understanding of gravity, do you think that there is no such things as gravity? It has only been a matter of weeks since we received data from a space probe that measured gravity far more accurately than ever before, it confirmed a number of ‘theories’.

As I’ve mentioned theories, I should explain the difference between scientific theory and the usual definition of theory. I have met people who have questioned the big bang as ‘just a theory’. This will also apply to my use of the word ‘fact’. Theories are built on evidence, a lot of evidence. The theories of relativity and quantum mechanics are comprehensive and can be used to predict the physical universe through mathematics with perfect accuracy. Everything is tested and tested again. I referred to the link I provided early as ‘peer-reviewed’, this means that once a paper is published, scientists in the same field try repeatedly to prove that the paper is wrong. If something is proven to be incorrect, it is discarded. If they cannot replicate the same results, it is discarded. Only when the theory can be repeatedly tested, can it be published. (Obviously, this is not always enough to stop newspapers publishing bad papers. News stories of papers that published and then proven wrong are ones that were not peer-reviewed at the time the papers published them.) If you wish to learn about evolution, you should read a book by the foremost authority in the study of evolution and a highly qualified and well respected biologist, Richard Dawkins. I understand that you may have some prejudice against him, however, he knows more about the subject than almost everyone else and his book ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ does not tackle the subject of religion, just science.

This ties in with our different ideas about ‘the truth’. Let’s run through a little exercise to study ‘the truth’.

Starting from the most extreme; existentially, you can only be sure that you exist. You cannot be sure that anything else is real. Given the rate of technological advancement, it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine the idea that it is possible, however unlikely, that you only exist as brain in a jar. You would experience the reality fed to you, just like in the movie ‘The Matrix’, and would be completely unaware. ’You’ could even be a computer simulation. Technologically, we are closer to the time when that level of simulation is possible than we are to the invention of the telephone. (There is a ‘law’ by which we can predict that advancement of processing power, Moore’s law). How does that affect your idea of truth? You can’t prove that it is not happening, or that it is not possible.

"I have not heard about animals that use the conceptual language (like humans). You can give such an example? I have not heard too about aspects of culture and art among the animals? And you?" - Again, so what? Our brains have evolved to become more complex and we therefore have more complex language. The only thing this statement proves is your ignorance. It's like saying that birds are created differently because we can't fly.

“Religion does not ask "how?" Just "why?" (For what purpose?). Seek to interpret the conflict between religion and faith is a mistake - they are two different strands of thinking.” – I am not mis-understanding. You are mis-understanding me and I can explain why. Just like you seem to think that humans are somehow different from animals, despite the fact that were a made of the same materials and clearly evolved from the same place, you seem to think that there are questions outside the scientific arena. The question of ‘why?’ is entirely pointless. If there was evidence, it would be within the scientific realm and we could discuss the evidence. But even you admit there isn’t any, so anything you do say is purely guesswork and is only worth my attention because I believe you are basing you terrible views on this nonsense.

 (I’d also like to point out that, if you go really far back, we share a common ancestor with all living things, including the plants and trees)

“While it may be a primitive pagan cults have something to do with what they were accused. Christianity is not.” – Hahaha. Christianity evolved from those ‘pagan cults’ I could write many, many pages on the history of Christianity, but I’ll try and compress it a little…

Your God, Yaweh, comes from the Hebrew texts. He appeared around 600 BCE. The old and new testaments as you know them are heavily edited to change the meaning from a polytheistic viewpoint to a monotheistic viewpoint. The trail goes back to 1750BCE with the Enuma Elish, discovered in the library of Ashurbanipal, it contains the original version of the creation story and many other parts of the old testament. By 1200BCE, the Canaanites followed the same polytheistic religion, now with El Elyon, Asherah and Baal (who still get a mention in some current texts). Between 950 and 850BCE, the people referred to by historians as J and E began writing the old testament, starting with Genesis 2. Creating new mythical stories to explain the world around them and, by Genesis 12, combining the Canaanite religion to create their own. In the Torah, on which the old testament is based, Abraham worships El Shaddai (El Elyon) and interacts with him directly in Genesis 18. During the story, Jacob makes El Elyon his ‘elohim’ or one true god. This word is used when a person worships multiple gods and chooses to worship one more than the other in order to gain special treatment. So, the old testament clearly began as a polytheistic religion.

El Elyon is then replaced with Yahweh. Said to have helped the slaves escape the tyranny of the Egyptians. This is written as myth, as the rest of the bible, not to be taken as any sort of fact. The history of Moses and the freeing of slaves has been historically mythical, the Egyptians did no such thing. Several references are still made to Asherah and Baal in the torah and old testament. Check out Exodus 18:11 “Now I know that the LORD is greater than all other gods, for he did this to those who had treated Israel arrogantly." – Pretending that this is a mistranslation is nonsense, if it was, someone would have simply translated it properly. This is not a mistranslation, you can check out the original text if you like. Yahweh is referred to as ‘The Great Warrior’ as one of many. Around 1000BCE, the worshippers of Yahweh gained increasing power as fears of attack increased. By 750BCE, the fear of attack from Syria increased and three prophets emerged to give the people hope. The prophesised that Yahweh would be their saviour and each wrote about him in a way that simply reflected their own fears and knowledge, rather than one which would indicate an outside source. Proof that the god they writing about, did not exist. By 711BCE, Assyria had invaded and won, but the Yahweh myth lived on. King Josiah in 662BCE believed that Yahweh, being the god of war, would save them and in order to gain more support for Yahweh had his high priest ‘discover’ a lost book of law. This book was ‘Księga Powtórzonego Prawa’ and was alleged to have been written by Moses himself. The book has been dated, by comparing the use of language, to be a forgery. It was used to command the removal of the other gods. The same priest also edited Joshua, Judges, Exodus and other books, changing them fit better with the new ideology. Including the destruction of the Canaanites for worshipping the other gods. “You shall have no other gods before me” clearly implies that there were other gods at the time.

The prophet Jeramiah appeared in 604BCE to bring out the god Yahweh again, saying the Yahweh would destroy Jerusalem. Palm 137:4 shows that it caused problems with the worship of a god that belonged to another land in their new land of Babylon. The problem was resolved by ‘second Isaiah’ who amended the book of Isaiah to seem more monotheistic. A priest referred to as P edited Exodus and other books to say that El Elyon and Yahweh are the same god. He then wrote Leviticus and Genesis 1 to add more monotheism. The stories of old gods, such as Marduk, were added and attributed to Yahweh. By 600BCE, Yahweh became the god he is today.

So, your religion was born from pagan religions and the need for power. It is clear that none of the religious texts were created by anyone but people. Again, massive evidence vs. imagination. You have said that the bible ‘is not a historical document and was written by many authors’, this agrees with my view, but contradicts the idea that you attend church as if it contained ‘the truth’. While I cannot prove that a god does not exist, I do have a large amount of evidence to show that your god was a concept developed as a tool by people for their own mental comfort and need for power.

You have dedicated your life to something that is clearly untrue. You are unable to grasp very basic concepts like statistics and evolution. Your unfounded prejudice of homosexuals is indefensible; you are still repeating the same basic faulty logic that ‘they can’t have children so they are unnatural’. With such basic difficulties grasping such important subjects, how can you expect me to believe you are fit to bring up a child? All evidence points to the fact that you will lie, maybe unconsciously, to her. You will withhold information that I have shown you can benefit her. You will teach her to hate that which she does not understand. You will teach her how to ignore the obvious evidence for that which makes her feel better, rather that accepting the truth and learning to deal with it.

I doubt that you will accept any of this. You have spent your whole life ignoring the evidence and it is clear that those who are so heavily indoctrinated find it very difficult to ‘de-program’ themselves. However, I do this in the hope that I will get through to you. I know you feel attacked by all of this and that your natural reaction will be to become defensive. Please take the time to calm down and read through this again, do your best to keep an open mind and explore the evidence. I have tried to answer all of your questions and correct your mis-understandings, but feel free to ask questions if you come across problems. If you need to ask another person, feel free to do so. I feel that you can understand the things I have explained and I can understand, a little, why you do not want to change your mind. You need to bring up your daughter the best way you can, even if that means admitting you were wrong. Being able to admit when you are wrong takes courage and strength and is one of the greatest lessons you can teach a child.