mexirish...nz

An article on the Washington Post website asks : What is your vision of heaven? What images from scripture, tradition or your own personal experience describe it best? The answer given by Paula Kirby seems to me to be the best, most well thought out response to a question such as this. I recommend you read it, but to summarize,  she says: To a Christian, the only point of life is to win a place in heaven to be with God for ever. But what is the point of that ? Apparently it is to praise God for his goodness in sending Jesus so that we could be saved from the eternity of torment that would otherwise have awaited us in hell (and there's another preposterous idea that has caused more than its fair share of avoidable human misery, but perhaps that will be a subject for another day). and... Fortunately, there is not the slightest evidence that points towards the existence of heaven, for it would be nothing but unspeakable tedium. I can't help thinking that the people who find...

As you probably may have gathered from reading my other posts, you'll know that I have little respect for religion. I'm proud to call myself an Atheist, and think that's it's probably the only philosophy worthy of respect in a sea of morally bankrupt religions. Christopher Hitchens seems to live in the same moral sea as I, and in keeping with this he's written a nice little article for Vanity Fair about the 10 "Commandments" - the moral framework set forth by the judeo-christian god. He goes through all the biblical commandments one by one and deals with them as one would given today's ethical environment.  I'm always horrified by people who treat the biblical commandments as if they're in some way a moral high point. They're really not, and I admit to being further horrified by the glaring omissions (genocide, rape, child abuse and care for the environment.  Wouldn't an omnipotent god have known about these too?) So check out h...