Tim Attwood wrote:
>> Go back a little over 2,000 years and you will find people already 
>> shooting holes in this idea that "god" has anything to do with piety, 
>> love, or other such things. Even then "some" of them where able to 
>> figure out that either god's ideas where arbitrary, and therefor 
>> claiming that good came from them was absurd, or that good existed 
>> without them, and therefor all the gods where really doing was 
>> stealing it, then claiming that they made up the whole idea 
>> themselves. You are not proving to anyone by such assertions that 
>> love, never mind justice, or other similar concepts *only* exist do to 
>> any god, instead of all the other "reasonable" explanations that 
>> exist, most of which can be pointed out to exist in "any" social 
>> animal, simply because, well, its "social".
>>
>> So, sorry, but if you are actually claiming that you "must" have a god 
>> for love to exist somehow, and that good derives from that, then you 
>> **are** in fact claiming on some level, that belief in something 
>> "godly" makes you good, even if you are willing to waffle a lot more 
>> than most theists about if you have to believe in Mr. Robes too.
> 
> Maybe there's some social reason that any mention of
> God makes otherwise rational people angry and confrontational?
> If you don't believe in God, why do you blame him for so much?
> I really wasn't trying to prove anything.
> I just figured AQ needs a hug.
> 
WTF? Where do I blame god for anything. God doesn't exist. Everything 
ever done in his "name" has been done by "people", usually claiming 
that, "He told me to do it!" I might as well blame the tooth fairy for 
having to get medical checkups, for all that the claim that always seems 
to come up that I, or any other atheist, blames god for anything makes 
sense at all.

But seriously, a thing doesn't need to "exist" for it to cause 
something. Racial purity is BS that "never" existed, but, it has been 
used to supposed lots of conflicts and genocide, even in the Bible. 
Tribalism/Nationalism are both pure inventions. Sure, you can have 
tribes, and even nations, but they are as artificial as race. Simply a 
made up distinction, which says, "We get to make up these rules, and you 
get to make up yours." Problem is, they are also often used to say, 
"But, since we don't like your rules, we get to shoot you for not 
following ours!" Concepts are real in the sense that they can be used to 
"justify" things, or create them. But, it doesn't make them suddenly 
"appear", as tangible, distinct, non-arbitrary, and entirely "invented" 
things, like some turtle in the middle of the desert, because some dude 
got stoned and decided there was a "god" named Om wandering around.

I blame who is responsible. The very human fools that invented a system 
of inequity, injustice, tribalism, outsider fear/hatred, then, when they 
got tired of most of the wars, tried to, "make it nicer", and failed, 
because most people didn't want to love their neighbor, they still 
wanted exclusive rights to their neighbor's land, women, riches, and/or 
those same people's obedience, and acceptance of the idea that they 
"should" have those rights. And, even the people that wrote the NT 
couldn't completely avoid "suggesting" that some of the localized ideas, 
about kings, rulership, rights of ownership, justice, and "who you 
*must* obey, hadn't really changed all that much, just the person(s) 
"demanding" them.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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