Christians are to love God.

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  –Deuteronomy 6:5

Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”   –Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27

Christians are to fear God.

Fear the LORD your God, serve him only  –Deuteronomy 6:13

The LORD Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread  –Isaiah 8:13

But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.  –Luke 12:5

And always remember…

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.  –1 John 4:18

Some highlights of the survey include:

I’m not at all surprised by the results of this survey. Most theists are convinced that non-believers are ignorant of faith and religious teachings. But the opposite is true. The very reason I am no longer religious is I actually studied what I believed. My goal in the beginning was to deepen my faith. But when I thoroughly studied and researched the texts, teachings, and historical context of my faith, I quickly realized it was little more than primitive superstition.

The reason I remained a Christian for 30+ years was willful ignorance. I was biblically illiterate and based my faith completely in emotion. Just for kicks, read your Bible cover to cover and study other religions of the world. Study the historical context, authorship, conflicts and textual errors. If you still call yourself a theist, enjoy your rituals and invisible being worship.

The next tactic by the Catholic Church was to go on the attack against secularists and atheists. The Pope went as far as to blame the actions of Hitler and the Nazi regime on atheism. But the wise Pope didn’t see the hypocrisy in his own words.

Hitler was a baptized Roman Catholic. He mentioned God in some of his rally speeches and how he was doing God’s work to rid the world of Jews. Hitler never publicly denounced his faith or his baptism. With the Pope establishing that baptism = Catholic, it leaves Pope Benedict XVI looking like an ass with his foot in his mouth. Nothing justifies genocide better than invisible deities and superstitious theologies.

This is a recent speech by Richard Dawkins on the subject:

A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.”

Jesus answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”
—Matthew 15:24

According to Paul, Jesus came for all people.

For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
—Romans 10:12-13

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.
—Romans 1:16

The miracles of the Bible have certainly lost their wow factor in today’s world. In Old Testament times, God was parting seas, turning people into pillars of salt and raining fireballs from the sky. Jesus and his disciples could cure blindness, leprosy and even raise dead people. But today God requires modern medicine to heal people and only occasionally appears on a piece of toast.

I read this article today and had a good laugh. God healed this man, Jack Sullivan, because the Pope ruled it was a miracle. He underwent a surgery that typically allows people to walk out of the hospital within 2 days completely symptom free. It is a highly effective an relatively simple surgery. But I’m not the Pope, so what do I know:

The Associated Press – The pain overwhelmed every drug Jack Sullivan’s doctors gave him to fight it, coursing through his back in vicious bursts that made sleep impossible.

The aspiring Roman Catholic deacon had hoped for a quick recovery from spinal surgery to keep his ordination on track. But five days later, he was hunched over in agony beside his hospital bed, trying to walk but unable to stand. That’s when he prayed to 19th century cardinal John Henry Newman.

“Please, Cardinal Newman, help me to walk so I can go back to classes and be ordained,” pleaded the retired county magistrate from south of Boston.

Instantly, Sullivan claims his body began tingling, joy filled him and he felt heat like “walking into the open door of a huge oven,” he said. Minutes later, he yelled to his nurse: “I have no more pain!”

Since then, the pain has not returned and Pope Benedict XVI has ruled Sullivan’s quick recovery a miracle that resulted from Newman’s intercession with God. The ruling clears the way for Newman’s beatification in his native England by the pope. Sullivan plans to attend the Sept. 19 ceremony.

Beatification is a step toward possible sainthood in which a person is declared blessed and worthy of veneration. The pope’s decision has brought Sullivan a measure of notoriety and invited deep skepticism from those who say Sullivan simply benefited from a successful surgery.

Neurosurgeon Michael Powell, interviewed for a column in The Sunday Times of London, said nothing is remarkable about Sullivan’s five-day recovery from an operation the doctor called “essentially quite easy” — except the claim it was a miracle.

“I am afraid I have had a good chuckle with spine surgeons here over that one,” said Powell, of the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London.

But this also applies to the origin of our universe. It is impossible to prove or disprove a deity’s involvement in our universe. But it is asinine to give absolute certainty to one theistic version of god. Science continues to evolve with new discoveries as we learn more every day. Religion only evolves in its failed attempts to justify how these modern discoveries work within their primitive belief systems.

Here is a clip with Leonard Mlodinow discussing his new book analyzing the origin of the universe. He claims that God is unnecessary but not impossible. In classic Jesus style, religious leaders went into immediate attack mode.

Yes. He always spoke openly to the world. Nothing was said in secret.

“I have spoken openly to the world,” Jesus replied. “I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. –John 18:20

No. Jesus frequently taught in secret.

Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ. –Matthew 16:20

“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “The Christ of God.” Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. –Luke 9:20-21, Mark 8:29-30

Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him. Then Jesus ordered him, “Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” –Luke 5:14

They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, because he was teaching his disciples. –Mark 9:30-31

He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, ” ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’“ –Mark 4:11, Luke 8:10

The latest religious scandal in New York has really gotten under my skin. Christians are outraged at the request to build a mosque near ground zero of 9/11. Christians in America want to use their religious freedom and political power to discriminate against another religion. Hypocrisy rules our country.

Now the president has been pulled into the fear campaign:

MSNBC — The White House said on Thursday that President Barack Obama is a Christian who prays daily as it looked to tamp down growing doubts among Americans about the president’s religion.

White House spokesman Bill Burton made the remarks hours after a poll showed that nearly one in five people, or 18 percent, said they think Obama is Muslim. That was up from 11 percent who said so in March 2009. The survey also showed that just 34 percent said Obama is Christian, down from 48 percent who said so last year. The largest share of people, 43 percent, said they don’t know his religion.

As Obama left for a vacation, Burton told reporters aboard Air Force One that most Americans care more about the economy and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and “they are not reading a lot of news about what religion the president is.”

Burton added, “The president is obviously a Christian. He prays every day.”

The survey, conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center and its affiliated Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, is based on interviews conducted before the controversy over whether Muslims should be permitted to construct a mosque near the World Trade Center site. Obama has said he believes Muslims have the right to build an Islamic center there, though he’s also said he won’t take a position on whether they should actually build it.

I don’t know about you, but I find great comfort knowing Obama prays daily to the most popular version of deity in America. Forget the economy and healthcare reform, let’s focus on the political importance of irrational superstition.