The Rant Institute

Everything is a matter of perception - everything! No religion or divine insight exists that overrides this inescapable fact about the human condition, despite claims by "believers" of every stripe to the contrary.  Even if God exists, it would be perhaps the greatest absurdity, and by far the greatest act of evil imaginable, for such a God to require that most of humanity depend necessarily for its salvation on a "divine revelation" that God decided to share with only a few of his "chosen" children and no one else, and for which the rest of humanity, which consists of the vast majority throughout history, must depend for their spiritual salvation.  And as if that weren't enough, that same God requires that everyone who accepts the "one true faith," must be willing to adhere to it for the rest of their natural born life, and be willing to fight to the death to defend and advance if need be.  Indeed, no other idea could e...

When Adam and Eve ate the apple in the Garden of Eden, they didn't just get thrown out of paradise on their keisters for doing so, they also single highhandedly barred humanity from entering the gates of Heaven. Jesus, so the story goes, came to redeem humanity for its apple eating forebears and reopen the gates of Heaven so souls could be saved. But if this is the case, then the story of Noah and the Great Flood only proves how truly sadistic God really is. Christian's protest abortion specifically because they believe that all life is sacred, and necessarily a gift from God. Every person ever born, therefore, is only born because it is God's will. Those who end up in hell, on the other hand, do so of their own free will, by choosing to disobey God. The story of Noah, however, proves otherwise. Taken at face value, the story of Noah claims that everyone on the planet had simply chosen to disobey God, including the unborn (unless we are to assume that no one was pregnan...

My sister is quite possibly insane. Part of her insanity comes from an adamant addiction to how right she is - about everything. (I'm not kidding, by the way. And trust me, this is not hyperbole.) As a result, she suffers from a complete inability to ever admit, or even recognize, that she could be wrong.  This inability to ever admit a mistake is made all the more ironic by the fact that she is more addicted to her Catholicism than the pope (an addiction, by the way, that can only be overcome through a 12 step program in Cath-oholics Anonymous). Yet even though some people might find it ironic that a person who claims to be made more humble by her Catholic Faith is completely incapable of every admitting she is wrong - which only demonstrates the placebo effects of Christian belief - I believe this inability is often the direct result of such a "faith" in the first place.   As a rapid Catholic, her religion (so she and other Christians argue tooth and nail) is the ...

Arguing with a Christian about God is like arguing with God about atheism, because they are in fact the exact same thing. The Christian is never trying to prove  that God is real, after all, but simply that their is no one in the world that can prove to them He is not; not even God himself. They believe that their "faith" is being tested whenever anyone suggests that a belief in God is irrational, which it so obvious to atheists but sounds completely insane to Christians. Like Narcissus, the Christian has fallen in love with the reflection of their own exalted, personified perfection, that they call God, and they want everyone else to accept it, because the "picture" they worship is so beautiful. The Christian can only see the young woman in that famous psychology picture, in this sense, and never the old woman. And anyone who tries to point out the other image ends up being crucified for it.  Christians are not basing their beliefs on any verifiable evidence ...

When Martin Luther nailed his "Ninety-five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences to the door of All Saint Church in Wittenberg, to protests against clerical abuses, including the sale of indulgences, he unwittingly started the Protestant Reformation. According to Wikipedia, however, and contrary to popular belief, "Luther merely passed around the pages, a move aided by the advent of the printing press around the same time." In either case, by challenging the Catholic Church, Luther had become the new Christ. After all, did Christ not "over turn the tables of the money lenders" who were operating within the temple, and threaten to "destroy the temple" (which has been interpreted to mean both the physical structure Christ was standing in when he made the claim, as well as Christ himself)? Luther, therefore, was simply following in the footsteps of Christ. For Christ challenged the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees for their corruption in th...

Christians often pride themselves on their sense of humility. It is as if the mere fact that they believe in a religion that requires them to be humble somehow makes them humble, no matter how insistent they are about being right. As Alanis put it, "isn't it ironic?" When Charles Darwin looked at the world, he concluded from his investigations that, much like the universe, our planet must have evolved over time. And over the course of this processes, different species must have evolved as well, through what he referred to as "the processes of natural selection." Although the theory wasn't perfect, and some have argued that many holes have  been punched in it since Darwin was alive, it seemed to make more sense than any other ideas that science had come up with to that point. It seemed to make sense, that is, unless you were a Christian. For the die hard Christian, Darwin's theory was pure heresy. Everyone knew, as far as the Christian was concerned, ...