The Rant Institute

One of the things Christian's love to give as gifts - especially to non-Christians - is books on Christianity. My own family, for example, does this all the time. And as my own belief in their religious views changed, they were only motivated to give me even more books on Christianity. But give them a single book on atheism to read - indeed, even if it is a book you yourself wrote! - and they will altogether ignore it, convinced that they know everything they need to know - amen. This double standard should not be surprising, since Christians are, by virtue of their very beliefs, seduced by their own power of self deception. While I have read a countless number of book by C.S. Lewis, G.K.Chesterton, and other Christian writers, it is safe to say that the vast majority of Christians have never bothered to read a single book written by an atheist about Christianity or atheism. Mind you, they've probably read lots of books by Christians like C.S. Lewis about atheism, but such ...

You have to marvel at our ability to simultaneously treat addiction as a social vice and an economic virtue, as both a condition typical of most Americans and a crime, and as the engine for coffee, tobacco, sugar, alcohol, and pharmaceutical industries on the one hand, and political opportunists and private prisons on the other. Make no mistake about it: the reason America incarcerates more people than any other country in the world by far, is simply a demonstration of the superiority of its economic policies, not the strictness of its laws. It not only shows just how profitable a good business model can be, especially one funded by the state, it also shows how eager people are to turn their sense of morality into someone else's  monetary gain. That's why those who we feel voice our prejudices the best, who only pander to our fears while promising to save us from them, have always been well funded through the tithings of all those who are most afraid. And the fact that ...

The attack at a gay night club in Orlando recently has left roughly 50 people dead and even more injured. Some people want to condemn "radical Islam" for the attack, because the shooter, Omar Mateen, dedicated his savagery to a bunch of religious savages. But Islam is not to blame for this crime, and neither is ISIS. This crime cannot be laid at the door step of Christianity either, or any other religion. It is simply the result of a person who chose to "believe" that homosexuality was a sin against an invisible God, and then chose to augment that belief with the beliefs of others who believed the same thing.  He believed this because a book was written thousands of years ago, by an ancient people, who wrote about committing such mass murders all the time. Today, that book is the single cornerstone upon which the three major religions all draw their divine knowledge about sex, love, and sexuality. In truth, however, this book simply reinforces our fear of those ...