The Rant Institute

 We are only as sacred as we are willing and able to see what is sacred in what a culture considers vile, and to see what is vile in what a cultures venerates as sacred.

"To such heights of evil has religion been able to drive men."   Lucretius, De Rerum Natura   This is part five about the love of violence and suffering that Catholicism conditions its followers to worship as a form of "love" for a God who requires an innocent man to suffer and die - rather than simply punishing or banishing a devil who is guilty as hell -  in order for Him to forgive us for being using our "free will" to be the sinners he created us with a preference for being.  The article was posted on CatholicExchange. com (at https://catholicexchange.com/gods-punishment-is-just-restorative-and-medicinal/), and claims that god's punishment is just, restorative, and medicinal. Catholics who "believe" such an idea are why the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius agreed with the Catholic theologian Blase Pascal that "men never commit evil so joyfully and fully as when they do it for religious conviction."  In his book, How the Ide...

 We are only unique to the degree we are allowed to be creative. And that creativity defines our value and our worth. And we are only as creative as we are free from someone else's dogmas.

 Each of us is a born scientist and lawyer. Those who fall in love with hanging the ornaments of language on a tree of logic become philosophers that chase truth like a blind dog chasing the scent of it's own tail.  And those who fall in love with the dog become artists.

With or without religion you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.   Stephen Weinberg

 You should not be afraid of someone who has a library and reads many books; you should fear someone who has only one book; and he considers it sacred, but he has never read it."  Nietzsche

  It has been argued that Christianity makes us better more "moral" human beings. But does it? It may make some people better in some ways, but it at times provides the sheepskin that allows better than anything else "man" to be a wolf to his fellow man, all while justifying the worst we can do to each other as being necessary to show our love for a God - a God that threatens to torture us for all eternity if we don't prove our devotion to Him by defending our brand of religion by killing anyone who doubts our commitment to our "faith" if need be.  While many people like to believe that Christianity is a religion that spreads peace and love like a hippy movement from ancient Rome, it is also a powerful lens for distorting moral truth for whole cultures and societies. Just consider how it justified the brutality of slavery for centuries, even as people around the world had been outlawing it as immoral six centuries before Jesus arrived.   First, to see ...

 Christianity is based on the belief that God designed us to behave in a way He commanded us not to behave. While He designed us with "free will" and a preference for disobedience, according to Christianity, He also commands us to only use that "free will" to obey. If we do, we go to heaven, and if we don't we go to hell. This is like asking a dog trainer to train your dog not to obey your commands, just so you can see how much the dog really loves you through its willingness to resist its programming. And if the dog fails at this task, you douse it in gasoline and set it on fire.    And if anyone asks you why you would ever do such a thing, you insist it is because you love your dog so much that you need it to show its love and devotion to you in return. And when it fails to do so, you choose to feel so hurt by this - even though you could easily choose not to feel hurt at all, especially since this was all part of your "plan" -  that you feel the onl...

"Would pious Christians go to their death for a story they made up, just a nice story? Because lets face it, most early Christians went to their death defending this claim. I mean, would someone do that for a pious legend that they made up?" In a YouTube video, the Roman Catholic Bishop Robert Barron argued that his “beliefs” were true because it was impossible to believe that Christians would be willing to die for a "pious legend that they made up.” In truth, however, people die for pious legends all the time. And Christians just as much, if not at times even more so, than others. The first problem we need to address with Barron’s statement, however, is who is the "someone" he is referring to here?  On the one hand, there are two different kinds of "someone," but you wouldn’t know it from the way Barron appears to treat them as one and the same. Those two groups are comprised of those who make up the “pious legend” and those who then d...

With or without religion you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.   Stephen Weinberg   Welcome to part four of our consideration of the Christian idea that, according to the Roman Catholic priest, Fr. Emmett Carter, "God's punishments are just, medicinal, and restorative." (https://catholicexchange.com/gods-punishment-is-just-restorative-and-medicinal/) But are they? And according to whom? Those doling out the punishments, or those upon whom such punishments are being inflicted? This idea is ironic, considering that the "punishment" being referred to is either the eternal punishment of hell or some temporary punishment while here on earth. If it is the former, it can never be restorative to the one being punished, and its eternal duration suggests it never restores the punisher either.  If such punishment refers to temporary suffering while here on earth, then we...