The Rant Institute

Look around the world today and ask yourself, who cares? Many of us like to feel like we do, but we don't. People are convinced that their "beliefs" will save them, and make everything alright. But they won't. We think the problems of the world can be fixed by more people turning to God, to prayer, and to respect for human life, even as our addiction to the "profit motives" of consumer capitalism, and all of the latest technologies it can produce for us, only cheapens the value of human life by reducing it to a credit score, and mere numbers in an actuary's ledger. We are awash in sex and violence, not because human beings suffer from a fallen nature, but because we have created an economic system of survival that necessarily feeds off of all of our basest instincts, and none more so than fear and greed. Indeed, money is the root of all evil, and like a vampire, its flower is the power born from the blood of war. The problems of the world are not t

If a superior species of beings was to invade our planet, as was depicted in the science fiction novel by H.G. Well, War of the Worlds , it is likely that that species of aliens would decide that, to save the planet, it would have to annihilate humanity. Such invasions, however, are always depicted as a means by which human beings are forced to band together to defend their great planet against some marauding band of evil space aliens, bent on taking over our planet for themselves and doing with it into whatever they want. It never occurs to most people that such "aliens" may simply be trying to do what's best for the planet. In truth, however, if you read the book by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, you'll find reasons for why the true treasure of this planet is its ability to sustain complex life. Although there are those who disagree with the premise that Ward and Brownlee put forward in their book, one th

In case you haven't figured this out, globalization is simply a giant ponzi scheme. And everyone who believes otherwise has simply sold their soul to the religion of the markets and made it their unquestionable messiah. It's not as complicated as it seems, but it's always presented as if it were so complicated only Wall Street Bankers can possibly understand it. All charlatans use this "smokescreen of complexity" to hide their slight of hand to pick your pocket. And globalization, and the financial pilfering of the entire planet that has now destroyed the Great Barrier reef - something that took millions of years to form, but has been destroyed in a matter of months, thanks to pollution and climate change - is basically no different. Banks, as everyone knows by now, run everything, and own everything. They provide money and make loans to people, corporations, countries, you name it. Those loans become money in the bank's pocket as soon as they are issued.

Christians believe that the only way to believe that life has meaning is to believe that God created us to love him, because he loves us, and that we are all here to fulfill his "divine plan" of making us love him by threatening to tell us all to go to hell if we don't. Even though the universe may be simply the byproduct of a divine act of unprotected procreation, Christians insist that life has "meaning" only if we have a belief in a "God" who can create an entire universe from nothing, specifically for us, but is utterly powerless to keep guns out of public schools, and all because he is angry that people there don't talk about as much as they used to. Without God, so Christians will tell you, life is completely meaningless. If you then ask the Christian, "How does believing in God give my life "meaning," and what "meaning" does it give, more precisely?", the Christian will either answer with a barrage of memori

 Christians hate and fear atheism precisely because their own bible says "the truth will set you free," which is clearly the last thing Christians want their own children to ever understand or discover. So to to prevent this kind of "freedom" from ever infecting their indoctrinated youth, Christians do everything they can to exclude "truth" from any public debate or discourse. Doing so not only proves how intellectually inferior Christians must therefore think their own beliefs really are, compared to those of atheism, it also proves that the easiest way to win a debate is to simply prevent your opponents from entering the conversation. By doing so, the Christian seeks to limit people's access to "the tree of knowledge," in order to control what they and their children "believe," because God knows that nothing frightens a Christian more than the idea that "the truth will set you free."    

The opposite of fear is not courage, but hope. Courage is what it takes to walk through the valley of the shadow of fear, while hope is a candle that, as Bob Marley put it, "lights up the darkness" in the valley. And the difference between atheists and Christians may all come down to their different ideas about hope. For the Christian, hope rests almost exclusively in the belief that God loves us like a father and ultimately wants the very best for us, and is even willing to die for us to make sure we have it. That hope comes with the belief that we have nothing to fear from death; for death is simply a doorway to eternal life, thanks to the fact that we are all in part responsible for the brutal murder of Christ (hooray for us!). Salvation, then, is ours, if we will but simply believe it, by believing in God. And for the Christian, this means necessarily believing in Christ. And for the Catholic, it means obeying God by obeying His "hand-maiden," the Catholic

Christians often insist that those who chose not to believe something are still choosing to believe in something.  In response to such assertions, Atheists point out that not believing in the tooth fairy is not the same as believing in the tooth fairy.  In truth, the claim by Christians is not as black and white as Christians so often reduce the world to be, nor is it always as simple as the Atheist's reply. First - If an Atheist chooses not to believe in God, witches, the idea that human beings are "fallen" and "sinful" from birth, that homosexuals are a threat to sexual sanctity and family values everywhere, or that white people constitute a master race because Noah cursed Ham rather than take responsibility for his (Noah's) own drunken nakedness,  it is because the Atheist understands that humanity is not in anyway "improved" by such beliefs; most of which are so obviously rooted in nothing but fear anyway. Second - The Christian insists, on

As I've mentioned in previous posts, Christians conveniently justify their condemnations of homosexuals by insisting they are always "hating the sin but loving the sinner." What this double standard ultimately boils down to is a Christian insisting that their own "belief" about homosexuality is necessarily the right one, and therefore trumps any and all beliefs about homosexuality that happen to be held by homosexuals. The sin of this double standard comes from Christians who refuse to practice what they preach. That is, the Christian insists that homosexuals can be separated from their homosexuality, even as they deny that a "Christian" can ever be separated from their Christianity.  Instead, any challenge to the belief system of Christianity eventually results in Christians insisting that their "Christian faith" is their identity, and as such, the two cannot be separated. Hence, as the Christian separates homosexuals from their "hom

I grew up in a family that is about as homophobic as Phil Robertson and the Westboro Baptists, only they're not quite as boisterous about it; at least not in public anyway. They have also conveniently convinced themselves  that their homophobia is really just their unique Christian ability to "hate the sin, but love the sinner" (even though these very same Christians adamantly refuse to accept that people can "hate Christianity, but love the Christian").  The sexual superiority complex necessarily relied on by such Christians is, of course, blanketed beneath the lambs wool of the Christian humility of serving "God." They interpret their fear of those who are different, in other words, as simply proof of their intimate knowledge and love of God. And the only thing such Christians are more sure about than that their own personal version of "God" exists, is that such a "God" would never want people to be homosexual - no matter how ma

One of the many different ways that Christians lie to children, besides cajoling them into believing in a God they cannot demonstrate in any way to exist, as well as sin, saints, heaven, hell, and so much more, is the belief that only through a belief in all of these things can a person hope to be saved from addiction to sex, drugs, and maybe even rock and roll. Christianity, according to this perspective, is the only panacea available to humanity for all of the vices that poison our soul, rob us of our discipline, and corrupt our sense of empathy and human compassion. (Don't mind everything from the Inquisitions to ISIS, by the way. Some "Believers" are still working the kinks out of the system. Thank you for your patience, Humanity.) Fundamentalist Christians have tried to advance this lie using something they call Hell Houses. First popularized in 1970s  by Jerry Falwell and the Trinity Assembly of God in Cedar Hill, Hell Houses are like the Haunted Houses someone ma

Some Christians draw a great deal of ghoulish delight from the idea that all those who deny their beliefs are "true" will one day find everlasting proof in the fiery pit of hell. Just ask Padre Pio or Phil Robertson. That such sadism undermines the very notions of charity, mercy, and forgiveness that so many Christians claim their religion represents, is obvious to everyone but Christians. Nor does it occur to such Christians that their desire to see their enemies roasted for all eternity is not proof of their spiritual purity, but of their spiritual cruelty, and evidence of just how sadistic their pathological addiction to religion can become.  Christians will deny that hell is only proof of their spiritual superiority complex, but this should not be surprising. After all, Christians also overlook the fact that the mere existence of hell, if it in fact exists at all (as they so often claim), only proves how truly sadistic their God really is. For if God is the creator o

Christians put an incredible amount of faith in their ability to understand everything about sex and sexuality using nothing but their intuition, their belief in God, and whatever version of the bible they happen to subscribe to. That ideas of sex and sexuality have changed throughout time, and indeed are different from culture to culture even around the world today, is inconsequential to Christians who, by virtue of believing in Jesus Christ, are convinced they possess a sacred knowledge of everything related to sex. Christianity, in other words, is a belief that has the power to almost instantaneously turn all Christians into infallible sexologists. From this absolute position of sacred sexual certainties, bestowed by nothing more than their acceptance of Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior, Christians then proclaim to know and define all of the sexual rules as proscribed by their immaterial God. Those rules include who is permitted to have sex with whom, what positions

Drive by any church on Sunday and you're likely to see plenty of cars outside, as throngs of Americans who spend much of their work weeks divided by cubicle walls like rats in a maze, come together to be led like sheep for the lamb of God; much to the financial benefits of their respective shepherds, of course. Apparently, sitting in state of the art buildings once a week - buildings equipped with heating and air conditioning, marble floors and bathrooms, wifi access, digital sound systems, and all of the trappings befitting the house of God (some of which are as big as football stadiums) - has the curious effect of making Christians feel better about all the poor and destitute in the world. Some even enjoy watching preachers bemoan the sufferings of this world from the comfort of their own homes, and can donate to those who do the bemoaning (but not necessarily those they bemoan) by clicking a PayPal button from their iPad. Parents across this great land readily force the

We are the gods to everything else. We are the superior intelligence to all other forms of life, so we believe, and we are the ones who "intelligently design" our world, our zoos, and even ourselves. Yet look at how we treat all those species in our care, whom we see as less evolved, less intelligent, and less cultured than we are; even among our own species, let alone all the others. We are the Nazi's to all of the other species on the planet, as one writer put it. Indeed, we are the monsters, and by believing ourselves to be the central Claymation in God's diorama, we cast ourselves in the role of the gods of all we survey. Like tiny little Napoleons, then, we think we are the most special species of all. And all because like Narcissus, we have fallen in love with the beauty of our own self importance. Christians are quite mistaken to think that they are made in Gods image, therefore, for if they were, they could only expect that God would eventually throw them