Are You Missing the Bus??

I will, as time permits, frequent blogs and Q&A’s on religion, in order to promote this blog.

It’s a hoot, particularly when dealing with Jehovah’s Witnesses. It’s interesting that they are strictly counseled to stay way from any contact with apostates, of which I am one, on the Internet or otherwise. An apostate used to be  Witness, but is not one now and speaks against their bullshit.

At any rate the question on this site was:

“Do JWs respect ” No Soliciting ” signs also on houses?”

As an ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses and experienced door knocker, I had an answer:

I said “Witnesses will point to a scripture that says that they are not solicitors, so the “No Solicitors” sign does not apply.”

“Unless, as mentioned above, some states change the law to define activities other than sales as soliciting.”

“However, at least in Florida, the “No Trespassing” signs apply to everyone, including Witnesses.”

While looking over the other answers, I can across this arrogant, belligerent comment form a poster known only as Debbie 2243. It seems Ms 2243 is often very un Witness like, beligerant, caustic and plain rude.  

She said “We are the last bus leaving and with us goes the last hope you have.”

I just had to laugh. What an arrogant asshole!! Typical Witness. On that site, I couldn’t say what I really wanted to, so I responded as follows:

“So, the Witnesses are everyones only hope? Here’s a condensed version of your bus analogy:”

“Hey, the bus is definitely leaving in 1914….”

“no wait, 1925…..”

“wait,1975, for sure now….”

“…wait, it’s coming in the 20th century (“Shortly, within our twentieth century, the “battle in the day of Jehovah” will begin”. From: The Nations Shall Know That I Am Jehovah – How? 1971 p. 216)”

“….Oh, wait, it will come within the life span of the generation that was aware of what was happening in 1914. (Watchtower, 7/1/69 pg395, “People who were only just old enough to understand what was happening to the world in 1914 are now approaching seventy years of age. Yes, the numbers of that generation are dwindling fast, but before they all pass away this system must meet its end in the war of Armageddon.”)

“….wait, they’re all dead….”

“…let me check that bus schedule again…..it’s somewhere here in the Bible….I know I’ve seen it……….”

“..oh yea, now we’re thinking it has something to do with 1914 and Noah and 120 years…or something….but we are sure of one thing! We haven’t been right yet.!”

“By the way the bus is in the shop. We’re resetting the “timing” belt.”

“In all your JW collective minds, you can honestly reconcile all the above, from you own literature? JW’s see no problem here?”

“Just a thought, but if you had started walking before the first “bus” was supposed to take “the last hope of mankind with it” in 1914, you would probably be there by now.”

“ And finally, I close with this; “So, does Jehovah have a prophet to help them, to warn them of dangers and to declare things to come? These questions can be answered in the affirmative. Who is this prophet?…This “prophet” was not one man, but was a body of men and women. It was the small group of footstep followers of Jesus Christ, known at that time as International Bible Students. Today they are known as Jehovah’s Christian witnesses….Of course, it is easy to say that this group acts as a “prophet” of God. It is another thing to prove it.” (Watchtower 4/1/72, pages 197)”

“It is definitely another thing to “prove it”.”

“If you keep predicting that bell bottom pants will come back, eventually you’re bound to be right, at some point.”

Well the moderator violated my answer and it was removed.

It seems the Jehovah’s Witnesses extend their “We will tolerate no opposing view” from their own organization and force the removal of embarrassing information they can’t manipulate or edit, from where ever they can.

My answer was from their own literature. They have in fact, predicted Armageddon, or the end of the world would come in 1914, 1925, 1975, before the end of the 20th century and before the generation that was aware of events in 1914 passed away.

Now they have changed that, since the 1914 generation are all pretty much dead.

Presently is it some convoluted calculation involving 1914, Noah and 120 years. Basically they are saying that 1914, plus 120 years brings us to 2034 and this is now significant in some shadowy, “stay tuned for more clarification from God” sort of way.

As a Witness, I remember feeling like the donkey following the carrot on the stick. Always close, but not quite close enough. This whole “predicting the end of the world” situation gets more and more pathetic, each time the Watchtower Society “tweaks” it to fit their interpretation “du jour”.

And the mindless drone Witnesses suck it up and ask for more.

Well this is my blog and I will say what I want, so ….

FUCK YOU, Watchtower Society for wasting so much of my life, causing me to live fear and anticipation of delusions dreamed up by some senile old men in Brooklyn New York.

But I was no prisoner. I allowed this to happen. I could have walked anytime I wanted. I feel like I have just been let out of prison after 50 years, when surprisingly, I had the key all along.

If you are a Jehovah’s Witness and you don’t see any of this, you’re a fucking jerk who deserves what you get.

I should know.

What a Total Crock of Shit! You Gotta read this!

Sounds from Hell???

It seems some ambitious well drillers somewhere, (the “urban legend” varies on the exact location from Siberia to Alaska,) drilled a little to deep and actually drilled into Hell.

You know, from Dante’s interpretation of the Biblical hallucination, where Satan lives and tortures the unbelievers for eternity.

You can actually hear it at this link:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=263590825742928687&q=sounds+of+hell&total=5788&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

It sound more like a frat party or me, but this thing has gotten legs and Bible screechers from all over are now more convinced than ever.

And of course these drooling hoards of Bible thumpers, desperate for anything resembling a fact that proves their beliefs, shove aside the real provable fact that the “sounds of hell” has been soundly debunked, and as always, just roll over the obvious.  

Go to:  http://www.snopes.com/religion/wellhell.asp for details on the debunking.

I mean, seriously. Who, in their right mind would put any type of credibility in this distorted, mish mash of random sounds as an authentic recording of Hell?

Only desperate Christians, grasping at any straw or crumb of “fact” that bolsters what they already believe. It’s pathetic how a lot of those in the Christian community cling to this totally unprovable fallacy. It is reminiscent of the window in the building in Florida that had a shadow on it that looked like the virgin Mary. The brain dead religious masses flocked to it in droves.

The interesting thing is that Christians, as with all religions, have virtually nothing in the way of tangible facts to prove most of their beliefs.

If I recall, in the Bible, God is non to pleased with Satan. Satan is the epitome of rebelliousness and the personification of evil. This being the case, why does he get an eternal job he obviously enjoys? Why doesn’t God tie him to a chair and have some sweet innocent child read the Bible to him for eternity? It doesn’t seem fair.

Further proof that Religion needs blind faith because it has no facts, and that it’s adherents are desperate from some tangible shred of evidence. So desperate that they believe the preposterous.

And why should that be a surprise? The whole Bible is preposterous.

What Barack Obama Could Not (and Should Not) Say

This is an article by Sam Harris about Barack Obama. Sam is atheist and I am a deist, so we disagree on somethings, but we are in total agreement on religion.

Enjoy!

Barack Obama delivered a truly brilliant and inspiring speech this week. There were a few things, however, that he did not and could not (and, indeed, should not) say:

He did not say that the mess he is in has as much to do with religion as with racism–and, indeed, religion is the reason why our political discourse in this country is so scandalously stupid. As Christopher Hitchens observed in Slate months ago, one glance at the website of the Trinity United Church of Christ should have convinced anyone that Obama’s connection to Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. would be a problem at some point in this campaign. Why couldn’t Obama just cut his ties to his church and move on?

Well, among other inexpediencies, this might have put his faith in Jesus in question. After all, Reverend Wright was the man who brought him to the “foot of the cross.” Might the Senator from Illinois be unsure whether the Creator of the universe brought forth his only Son from the womb of a Galilean virgin, taught him the carpenter’s trade, and then had him crucified for our benefit? Few suspicions could be more damaging in American politics today.

The stultifying effect of religion is everywhere to be seen in the 2008 Presidential campaign. The faith of the candidates has been a constant concern in the Republican contest, of course–where John McCain, lacking the expected aura of born-again bamboozlement, has been struggling to entice some proper religious maniacs to his cause. He now finds himself in the compassionate embrace of Pastor John Hagee, a man who claims to know that a global war will soon precipitate the Rapture and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (problem solved). Prior to McCain’s ascendancy, we saw Governor Mitt Romney driven from the field by a Creationist yokel and his sectarian hordes. And this, despite the fact that the governor had been wearing consecrated Mormon underpants all the while, whose powers of protection are as yet unrecognized by Evangelicals.

Like every candidate, Obama must appeal to millions of voters who believe that without religion, most of us would spend our days raping and killing our neighbors and stealing their pornography. Examples of well-behaved and comparatively atheistic societies like Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark–which surpass us in terrestrial virtues like education, health, public generosity, per capita aid to the developing world, and low rates of violent crime and infant mortality–are of no interest to our electorate whatsoever. It is, of course, good to know that people like Reverend Wright occasionally do help the poor, feed the hungry, and care for the sick. But wouldn’t it be better to do these things for reasons that are not manifestly delusional? Can we care for one another without believing that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and is now listening to our thoughts?

Yes we can.

Happily, Obama did a fine job of distancing himself from Reverend Wright’s divisive views on racism in America, along with his fatuous “chickens come home to roost” assessment of our war against Islamic terrorism. But he did not (and should not) acknowledge that the worst parts of Reverend Wright’s sermons, as with most sermons, are his appeals to the empty hopes and baseless fears of his parishioners–people who could surely find better ways of advancing their interests in this world, if only they could banish the fiction of a world to come.

Obama did not say that religion’s effect on our society, and on the black community especially, has been destructive–and where it has seemed constructive it has generally taken the place of better things. Religion unites, motivates, and consoles beleaguered people not with knowledge, but with superstition and false promises. Surely there is a better way to bring people together in the 21st century. The truth is, despite the toothsomeness of his campaign slogan, we are not yet the people we have been waiting for. And if we don’t start talking sense to our children, they won’t be the ones we are waiting for either.

Obama was surely wise not to mention that Christianity was, without question, the great enabler of slavery in this country. The Confederate soldiers who eagerly laid down their lives at three times the rate of Union men, for the pleasure of keeping blacks in bondage and using them as farm equipment, did so with the conscious understanding that they were doing the Lord’s work. After Reconstruction, religion united Southern whites in their racist hatred and the black community in its squalor–inuring men and women on both sides to injustice far more efficiently than it inspired them to overcome it.

The problem of religious fatalism, ignorance, and false hope, while plain to see in most religious contexts, is now especially obvious in the black community. The popularity of “prosperity gospel” is perhaps the most galling example: where unctuous crooks like T.D. Jakes and Creflo Dollar persuade undereducated and underprivileged men and women to pray for wealth, while tithing what little wealth they have to their corrupt and swollen ministries. Men like Jakes and Dollar, whatever occasional good they may do, are unconscionable predators and curators of human ignorance. Is it too soon to say this in American politics? Yes it is.

Despite all that he does not and cannot say, Obama’s candidacy is genuinely thrilling: his heart is clearly in the right place; he is an order of magnitude more intelligent than the current occupant of the Oval Office; and he still stands a decent chance of becoming the next President of the United States. His election in November really would be a triumph of hope.

But Obama’s candidacy is also depressing, for it demonstrates that even a person of the greatest candor and eloquence must still claim to believe the unbelievable in order to have a political career in this country. We may be ready for the audacity of hope. Will we ever be ready for the audacity of reason?

Sam Harris is the author “The End of Faith” and “Letter to a Christian Nation.” He can be reached at www.samharris.org

Just a General Anti-Religious Rant.

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace 

From the late John Lennon’s composition, “Imagine”

Lennon’s observations of life had evidently led him to the conclusion that for the World to be at peace there would have to be “no religion”. After 56 years on this planet, I have also come to that inescapable conclusion.

Organized Religion is a stain on the fabric of humanity, should be exposed for what it is and eradicated. I hope the world wakes up and realizes this before there is no world left. The end of the world at the hands of Religious extremists of any persuasion is not so hard to imagine in the light of recent and past events.

Personally, I’m a Deist. I believe that the universe was created by a supreme being, intelligent design if you will, but I don’t claim to be in exclusive contact with he/she/it or them. Nor do I belong to any group that claims exclusivity with this entity as it’s only spokesman, earthly representative or modern day prophet. I do not claim membership in any organized religion and I also don’t subscribe to the pathetic, dismissive platitude that “there is good in all Religions”.

I find the Bible full of contradictions, scientific inaccuracies and improvable tales of supernatural events. The Bible in general, is impossible to substantiate. There is no proof that it is from God. There is no proof that Jesus Christ ever lived and was an actual historical figure.

I ask myself why, when approximately 30% of the world’s adult population is illiterate, Almighty God chooses to communicate the way to salvation to us humans via the written word. Every Religion has a Holy Book written in cryptic almost undecipherable prose. 1 in 3 adults can’t read them. Of those that can, thousands of interpretations are spawned Subsequently there are thousands of Religions, each claiming that it has the correct interpretation of the Bible and the other “Holy” writings. I have read the Bible at least 50 times in my life and that is a conservative estimate. I still do not have a clue what the whole picture is other than the basic tenants.

I am familiar with the Buddhist Theravada and Mahayana and the Tripitaka or the Three Baskets. I have read the Qur’an, the Muslim Holy Book and am familiar with Hindu Scripture. The one outstanding factor that the Bible and all these Holy Books have in common is that they are so cryptic as to invite as many interpretations as they have readers.  This also permits these writings to be used by many unscrupulous charlatans who claim direct communication with God and thus exclusive and complete understanding of “Gods will” that is only understood by them and only available from them. These charlatans, garner large followings of hapless “faithful”, swindle them of their wealth and crave and often achieve significant political power. At times they achieve power over entire cultures, crossing national borders, as The Church of Rome, Judaism and Islam.

Why does the Bible or any communication from God have to be “in code”, cryptic or subject to as many interpretations as there are readers? Why would “God” create the necessity of a learned hierarchy to “interpret” the vital facts concerning our everlasting salvation? Can’t he communicate with us in a few basic pages, in simple language that the literate majority could easily read to the illiterate minority?

Or better yet, just insert it in our brain. If God is interested in the good of all mankind and in the outcome of all our lives, that would be the simple, quickest way to solve most of our problems. Zap, you’re now all peaceful, loving creatures with no wish to harm your fellowman. Now you know for a fact there is a God and if it is a he/she/it or them. Done in micro seconds. Why is Religion necessary?

Except for the natural wonders that surround us, I have never seen what I would consider a “Miracle” or any instance where God has clearly directly intervened in my life. I can only draw the conclusion that he really doesn’t care or he simply doesn’t interfere. Perhaps our existence is an experiment playing itself out or some cruel galactic bet. Why does one small child suffer cancer, why do wars kill and maim millions, why do teenagers at the beginning of their lives, with so much promise die horribly in accidents? Why does some lunatic go on a shooting rampage on a college campus or in a restaurant?

Miracles are so scarce that people cling to the idiotic.  For example, the supposed image of the Virgin Mary that appeared recently on the windows of a building in Florida. What was the point? Is this the best God can do? Now, raise a child from the dead, and you’ll get everyones attention! But that doesn’t happen.

Atheism is illogical. It spends most of its time pointing to the absurdity of religion as proof that there is no God. Atheism is becoming a “Religion” itself, its defenders exhibiting as much passion as the most devout Baptist or Muslim. Atheists also point to the Bible and other Holy Book as depicting fantastic unbelievable events, miracle, visions etc that are neither believable nor provable. Personally, I actually agree with a lot of what they say. But absurd religions and cryptic, improvable books that claim to be “inspired of God” do not prove God doesn’t exist.

I also think evolution is illogical and I am not alone. Many learned scientists agree with me. While both atheism and evolution have their compelling points, the facts I observe tell me otherwise.

I’m not a Christian. The Bible talks at length about Christ’s sacrifice and how “God loved the World so much he gave his only begotten son so that all may have life”. The last thing I would want to do is offend the God of creation, but I simply cannot get my head around that concept. What purpose was served by Jesus dying such a humiliating, painful death? What did it prove? That he was willing to do so? I don’t know. Can’t God just read his mind and avoid all the pain?

The World is in such a lousy condition, I would hate to see it if God didn’t love it, as the Bible claims. I wonder why it was even created.

I was for the first 50 years of my life a Jehovah’s Witness. My life’s experiences only illustrate and reinforce my conclusion on Religion. I am no longer a Witness and pity the thousands that form their lives around that unreasonable and improvable faith. In fact, I pity the fool that clings to any religion like a small child does to his mother’s skirt.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are just one of a very long list of pathetic, vile, misleading groups each claiming God’s favor while delighting in the prospect of the death and destruction of everyone else. Why in every Religion is it a prerequisite that the loving, kind benevolent God you worship has to kill in the most barbarous way anyone who doesn’t believe as you?

My whole point is that: I don’t know and no one else, despite their claims, does either.

I don’t know what this “God”, Supreme Being or Intelligent Designer wants for us. I do not know how, or even if he wants to be worshipped, venerated or prayed to. I don’t have a clue. But neither do you, nor does any organized religion.

There is no factual proof that God deals exclusively with any one group one this earth or that any specific group is his spokesman or “His chosen people”. Not a shred of evidence. However, there are a myriad of facts proving otherwise.

“Oh, I’ve found Christ”. Bullshit. Prove it. I don’t care what you feel, or what is “in your heart”. You can’t prove it and I can’t disprove it. But the onus is on you, oh religious one, because you’re the one making the claim.

“You have to have faith!” Of course you do. Religion needs faith because it has few facts. The whole concept of religious faith is absurd.

People in general have become disillusioned by religion. Religion, in general, is loosing membership. Even church members will say “I’m spiritual, not religious.” How many times have you heard someone say that? Perhaps you’ve said it yourself. Personally, I am simply getting tired of religion, while claiming to be our protection and our salvation, exploiting and misleading its members for its own gain.

It is my sincere hope that mankind can rid itself of the venomous effect of Organized Religion. I don’t think as a race we can survive if we don’t. We have the means to wipe all life off this planet and if it were to get into the hands of radical Islam, it would happen. And it’s not just radical Islam that is to be feared. Christianity has wrought more misery and murder than Islam, to date. There are radicals in every religion, even Christian that would crash planes into building, blow themselves up and even use nuclear weapons on the “unbelievers” if they could.

The end of man at the hand of religion is not only possible, but inevitable, unless what is necessary, but presently unthinkable happens: Religion is eradicated at its roots and ripped from the fabric of society like the blood sucking, life threatening cancer it is. It is the only solution.

Unfortunately, it remains highly unlikely that the masses of mankind will understand that this has to be done and that leaders will emerge willing to do it.

At my age my hope is to live my remaining years in relative peace.

However, I fear for my children,  grandchildren and the rest of humanity.

“Christians” Keep Shoveling Religious Bullshit.

I am an ex Jehovah’s Witness, and to them an Apostate. I am no defender of Jehovah’s Witnesses. In fact, quite the opposite. But that doesn’t mean that everything they do is wrong or that anytime someone says something against them, they are correct. In fact, all Religion is bullshit and very often the actions of the “faithful” are proof of that.

It irritates the shit out of me when people on any side of this multi-sided debate, point to improvable “facts” or experiences that seem to support their position. It just shows the inherent inability of self righteous, religious lunatics to have a rational thought. Recently, on a religious blog, someone posted a question asking all Jehovah’s Witnesses and ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses what they thought of the experience related here:

http://bibleprobe.com/haydeecortes.htm If you don’t want to bother going to the link, I’ll summarize it for you. Basically, a woman who was a Jehovah’s Witness, while under anesthesia, had an out of body experience, that “Christians” contend is proof that Jehovah’s Witnesses are wrong when they teach that the Bible says man “is” a soul. Most Christian religions teach that man “has” a soul, that is separate from his physical body and lives on after one dies. So this persons “soul” left the body, hovered above it and she “saw” herself, lying on the gurney, dead for the moment. This particular women saw her experience as proof that the Witnesses were wrong in their belief. It caused her to leave the Witnesses and she has how embraced some equally asinine “Christian” sect.

As a side point the soul evidently has eyes, as you can see your own dead body. I suppose if God has given us a soul he could give it any type of ability he wanted, including playing the piano, roller skating and maybe catching flying insects with a darting, sticky tongue. So a soul that “sees” is believable within the context of the preposterous belief of a soul.

For example, if your are a Jedi Knight, you use the Force to battle evil and a host of weird aliens and robots. If you’re George Lucas and your going to make up the whole Star Wars fantasy to begin with, the concept od the Force fits right in the equally preposterous notion of the whole Star Wars setting. The Force seems normal. So, the soul having eyes is not beyond belief, if you already believe in the sill, unprovable notion that the soul exists.

Anyway, on this website, “Christian” assholes jumped on this woman’s “near death” or “out of body” experience. They were downright giddy and cyber salivating at the prospect of showing the Witnesses to be lying sons of Satan and teaching anti Jesus lies. The “Praise God!” quotes were coming at me like a machine gun. They were lapping it up.

If you reason on it, out of body experiences and near death experiences and the accompanying hallucinations don’t mean shit. I have experimented with all types of hallucinogenic drugs, I did the peyote ritual and have had many mind bending experiences that seemed real.

You think that you are driving your car but in reality, you may be lying on a stretcher somewhere hooked to a computer that is generating reality in your brain. You smell, taste, see and hear, but it isn’t real. Of course, we can’t do that..or can we? Is the whole concept behind the “Matrix” movies possible? Yes it is. Our brain generates our reality, usually from our senses, but under the influence of drugs, oxygen deprivation, extreme stress, mental illness, to name a few it can generate some pretty cool or scary “realities”.

If we could figure out how to hook a computer up to our brain, we could generate all kinds of “realities”. I suspect someone is working on that as you read this and at some point, technology will get around to doing that. Hey, Schwarzenegger did it in “Total Recall”

Also, we are subject to the power of suggestion while we are in a state of semi-consciousness and/or under the influence. Everyone has heard of these out of body experiences and they all are basically the same, white light, hovering above the room looking down at our unconscious body, etc. These create a power of suggestion.

While under the influence, I found myself in Johnny Carson’s chair on the Tonight Show discussing what animal we would be if we could choose. Once I was convinced one of The Three Stooges was my real father (I was hoping for Curly). I also remember combing my hair and each time I ran the comb through it, my hair changed colors, from green to red to orange, etc until finally it turned into hissing snakes. Gee, I wonder where my subconscious got the preconceived notion. As a side point, being presently almost completely bald, I would settle for hair of any color, but that’s another discussion. The point is that these were very real experiences. But I know they didn’t happen.

If you have a problem with the Witnesses, why bring up this improvable story? If this woman was a witness in court, I would tear her testimony apart.

“So, when you saw your body lying on a gurney while you were hovering above it, were you under the influence of any type of drug?”

It would take the jury 30 seconds to make the decision

 What was this woman’s history? It isn’t mentioned. Was she a little loony to begin with? There is not enough information to give this story any type of credibility.

In her story she tells of another “out of body” experience that happened while she was sleeping. She got out of bed, stood at the window and turned and saw her body still in bed. Again, she claims she was dead.  Seriously, give me a break. We’ve all had some really crazy dreams that seemed real. Simply because it coincidentally supports her theology, it gets transformed into an “out of body experience”

Do we have a soul or are we a soul? I don’t claim to know. There remains no proof either way. And the experience of a woman with an unknown history, under the influence of a drug, proves nothing. 

As I mentioned, this experience was put on this website by an anti-Jehovah’s Witness, as “proof” that the Witnesses theology, that “we are a soul, we don’t have a soul” was wrong. What if, being a Jehovah’s Witness, she heard voices that said, “Jehovah’s Witnesses are the true religion!”? Would anti-Witnesses believe her then? Hardly. She would be dismissed by them as a raving lunatic, under the influence of drugs and as such completely unreliable. But her “experience” supports their theology, so they validate it. They give credibility to the hallucinations of a woman of an unknown previous mental state and under the influence when it proves their point.

And all the anti-Jehovah’s Witnesses took the bait, no questions asked. Is it any wonder that these same people accept the Bible as sacred and God’s word with nary a shred of proof?

The Witnesses hang themselves with their own literature. You don’t have to resort to improvable bullshit stories like this one. The result is that legitimate provable arguments are diminished when you bring up something like this.

We make fools of ourselves when we accept, at face value an article or experience that is at the least questionable and in fact improvable. These “Christians” accuse the Witnesses of the very same thing.

As an ex JW and an Apostate, I make no excuses for the Witnesses, but presenting this type of stuff as “proof” of anything is inexcusable and gives them cause and an excuse to doubt everything negative said about them.

As A Deist, I have concluded that there is a God/Intelligent Design, but I do not presume to have any exclusive communications with him/her/it and/or them. I do not believe in religion. I would describe myself as spiritual not religious, so I have concluded that there is a “spiritual plane”. I don’t claim to know anything about it.

The faithful always admonish me: “You have to have faith”.

Of course you do. Religion needs faith because it has no facts. There is no proof that God wrote the Bible or that Jesus Christ ever even existed.

But what do you expect from a guy who’s father was one of The Three Stooges?