If there is one thing I know it's that faith is a very dangerous notion indeed. Faith is the license to check the intellectual side of your brain at the door. All religions require that you do this. All of them. If you were to do otherwise the claims they make might be just a tad hard to reconcile with the logical thinking you are attempting.

Evolution or the lack of it is one of those debates that make me sit back in amazement. Are we really to believe that the earth was created only five thousand years ago and with just one person and a spare rib to create a mate? I suppose incest must follow that recipe to create the rest of us. Observations at your local mall may actually support this argument I regret. Despite that I still have a hard time believing our "snap of the fingers" creation.

God in his infinite wisdom must have for some reason thought it best to leave behind solid scientific evidence of a planetary history dating back literally millions of years just to throw us off the trail. Only He would know the reasons behind this of course.

The religious amongst us would like to point out that without the teachings of the Bible, Koran or whatever your theological teachings of choice are that man would have no moral compass to live by. So as an atheist that means I must think that it is okay to kill or steal or rape? Well I admit to the occasional impure thought when confronted with those glossy ads for lingerie in my wife's fashion magazines. But I like to think that committing an actual transgression of any kind on another individual as morally reprehensible. I know this intellectually and emotionally. Do we really need the writings of primitive shepherds and the like to know what is right and wrong? Isn't the only true commandment to treat others, as you would have them treat you?

I love this line from an Umberto Eco book. "When we traded the results of our fantasies, it seemed to us--and rightly--that we had proceeded by unwarranted associations, by shortcuts so extraordinary that, if anyone had accused us of really believing them, we would have been ashamed." All religions it seems to me fall into the category of fantasies. And I do feel ashamed that so much of mankind has chosen to abandon our senses, reason and intelligence to gain insight and instead take on faith the writings of those from hundreds or even thousands of years ago who had little education or benefit from modern science and thinking.

So we are to believe that faith in Christ or Allah or even Ron Hubbard (Scientology) is our only path to salvation. The one big problem I have with this is they all believe theirs is the only true path. We must all be going to some ones hell then. Fear is the motivator behind all religions. If we don't believe and have faith in their teachings then it's an eternity of damnation for us. God must be a truly vengeful type when it comes to us mere mortals. As surely we must be all infidels when it comes to one religion or another. It's really a kind of a protection racket not unlike practiced by the mob, you either buy "protection" or else you burn in hell for all time.

Faith in a nutshell is not wanting to know what is true. Truth can only be arrived at by rational thought. Religionists "know" the answers before they even start examining scientific facts. Analysis is relegated to faith. They don't want to know, they want to believe. So what is it in us that compel the masses to have all the answers to life's questions answered for us? Is it just intellectual laziness or is there something more? No doubt there are many reasons why the faithful fall back on religion to give them guidance. However, I am certain that more often than not it comes down to the pack mentality. If my parents and friends and neighbors' believe it then it must be true. It is just laziness then isn't it?

Or maybe it's just mass hysteria?