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[Thorne]

Thorne my friend, we are far more alike many would think.

I wonder about that, sometimes. I can't understand how someone could pass a critical thinking course, yet still fall under the spell of someone like Chopra. While some of what he says is little more than prettied-up common knowledge, such as reducing stress and eating properly, so much of it is tied in with spiritual nonsense that defies rationality. He gives no explanations for these mystical energy flows he talks about, just expects you to believe they are there based upon his word. I can't accept that. I want evidence, testable and verifiable.

And by the way, honestly, after reading those links you posted in your response to me, I respect your own opinion moreso than what I read on those sites.

I thank you for that. I don't take everything they say on those sites as gospel. Sometimes I disagree with their approaches, or their attitudes. But the basic message, showing evidence to support your position, is one that I stand behind wholeheartedly.

Is it your contention, as I suspect, that there is just single reality? It is my contention and te contention of many, many , others, that there are indeed trillions of realities, which one is the "one reality"?

If, by reality, you mean universe, then I would have to say I don't know. I know there are some hypotheses out there about multiple universes, existing in different dimensions. Perhaps even an infinite number of them. I even saw one which proposed that it was two of these universes, ours and another, actually touching and transferring energy, which we now interpret as the big bang, the origin of the universe. While interesting, there seems to be little or no evidence of such things, except that the thought-experiments built around them seem to answer certain cosmological questions about the origins of our universe. But I've also read that they create at least as many problems as they solve, and there is no hard evidence to support them over any other claim, including the supernatural ones.

While I agree that research into such things should continue, as should research into the supernatural, I expect that there will be little real evidence to be found in either case, and they will have to remain objects of speculation and faith. But that doesn't mean we should latch onto any fanciful story which makes us feel good and declare it to be the absolute truth of the universe, as so many religions seem to do.

I don't know if you're old enough to remember the 60's (they say that if you DO remember the 60's you weren't really there) but I can remember all the silliness of the hippie culture, latching onto anything which felt good and flew in the face of authority. Drug fueled visions of goodness and light had millions of kids declaring Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land as the ultimate religious philosophy, even though it was intended as a parody of religions. I read the book and laughed at the stupidity of the characters who fell into the trap of religion, then looked around and saw how many people in real life were falling into the same trap. Including my own parents. In retrospect, I would say that the 60's, and Heinlein, and Asimov, were the beginning of my road to atheism.

As for belief systems, I don't think I have one. Atheism, as noted, is not a belief system, but a denial of belief systems. Science is not a belief system, but it does involve a certain amount of trust. I trust those scientists who know more about their subjects than I do, who have been tested and examined by other scientists. It's either that or learn everything there is to know about everything, and I don't have the time for all of that. I learn what I can and generally learn enough to understand what the scientists are saying, and trust the judgment of other, reputable scientists. If you want to call that a belief system, so be it. But I take nothing on faith, only with evidence.

And with that in mind, and getting back to the topic, I can find no credible evidence of any form of afterlife; I can find no credible evidence of any form of gods; I can find no credible reason to follow the tenets laid down in ancient books, tenets which may have made some sense at the time they were created but which have little real bearing on the modern world.

If you have the need for some form of personal god, some kind of belief system which defies rational thought, whether you want to call it a religion, or a fantasy, or a fairy tale, that's your decision to make, and I have no quarrel with that. But if you want to try to force your beliefs onto others, to infiltrate the laws of the land with your beliefs, to hide behind those beliefs while committing foul crimes against others, then I will fight you. And I won't be alone. Atheists are organizing, growing more confident, and fighting back against the institutions which have terrorized and persecuted them throughout history.

And THAT is what terrifies the believers. The fact that atheists can live good, moral lives without bending knee to their archaic belief systems fills the religious leaders with fear, because they can see that they are losing their only hold on their followers. Their gods are being shown to be impotent and unnecessary. Their power is shrinking. The need for their churches is dwindling. And there's not a damned thing they can do about it.